Shenzhen Zhiming Lawyer Interprets: Maritime Disputes Expand Six Times in 40 Years, How to Compliantly Address Supply Chain Risks for Enterprises
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In October 2025, the Supreme People's Court released a report on the maritime trial work of the people's courts, disclosing a set of figures: the annual number of maritime trial cases received increased from 18 in 1984 to 34400 in 2024, with a cumulative total of 638000 cases received as of September 2025, with a target amount of over 450 million yuan, and the scope of accepted cases expanded from the initial 18 to 108. The types of cases have expanded six times in forty years, and maritime disputes are no longer just about "ships and goods". When a contract for the transportation of goods by sea involves trade contracts, letters of credit, insurance, and supply chain financing, and when new formats such as blockchain bills of lading, offshore wind power, and ocean farms flood the case files, companies are no longer facing isolated transportation disputes, but rather the transmission of risks throughout the entire supply chain. Director Lawyer Shen Jinlong from Shenzhen Zhiming Law Firm pointed out that the "width" and "thickness" of maritime disputes are essentially the projection of complex commercial structures at the legal level. Enterprises must re-examine contracts, documents, and financial arrangements from a full chain perspective, otherwise winning a transportation contract lawsuit may result in losing the entire commercial chain.
1、 The structure of disputes has changed: from "disputes over ships and goods" to "interweaving ships, goods, money, and certificates"
The main battlefield of traditional maritime cases is focused on ship collisions, cargo damage and shortage, freight recovery, and maritime rescue, with the applicable rules centered around the Maritime Code and relevant international conventions on maritime cargo transport contracts. However, in recent years, public information from multiple maritime courts has shown a significant increase in foreign-related factors, with a noticeable increase in cases involving overseas entities, projects, and funds. The more crucial change lies in the superposition of legal relationships - in the same dispute, shippers, traders, carriers, banks, and insurance companies each assert their rights based on contracts, documents, and financing arrangements.
Articles 41 to 46 of the Maritime Code establish a carrier liability framework around contracts for the carriage of goods by sea, but this framework cannot cover payment arrangements under trade contracts, document requirements under letters of credit, and pledge of cargo rights under financing agreements. In practice, a bill of lading serves as a receipt for goods, proof of transportation contract, and proof of delivery. The more prominent its "property rights certificate" attribute is, the easier it is for disputes in the transportation process to be transmitted to the settlement process. Director Lawyer Shen Jinlong from Shenzhen Zhiming Law Firm found that many companies only focus on suing transportation contracts when representing multiple commercial disputes related to supply chain finance. After winning the lawsuit, they find that the losses caused by trade breaches and fund ruptures cannot be compensated for in transportation contract disputes. The starting point of a lawyer's case handling logic must be moved forward: when dealing with freight disputes, it is necessary to simultaneously review the payment terms of trade contracts, the requirements of letter of credit documents, and the pledge clauses of financing agreements, and integrate the three clues of cargo flow, document flow, and fund flow into one set of solutions.
2、 Iteration of Dispute Resolution Philosophy: Business Rationality and Compliance Implications Behind the 59% Withdrawal Rate
In 2025, there will be 14000 cases of first instance transfer and withdrawal by maritime courts nationwide, with a transfer and withdrawal settlement rate of 59%, a year-on-year increase of 25%. Nearly 60% of cases have been settled through mediation or withdrawal, indicating that the parties' demands for dispute resolution are changing - a winning judgment that has been delayed for two years often has less effect than recovering 70% of the payment within three months. The withdrawal of funds, disposal of goods, and preservation of commercial relationships have become more realistic considerations than "winning lawsuits".
Institutional supply is also working in the same direction. As of December 2025, more than 60 one-stop water dispute resolution centers have been established nationwide, covering coastal areas, the Yangtze River Basin, and other inland waterways; In January 2026, the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Transport jointly issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Construction of Water based 'One stop' Dispute Resolution Centers", proposing a hierarchical model of "mediation to support the front, litigation to provide a backup". The inspiration for enterprises is that the design of dispute resolution clauses should not only include "submitting to a certain court for litigation", but should also incorporate a gradient arrangement of mediation, arbitration, and litigation in the transaction structure, and clarify the linkage mechanism between document delivery, transfer of ownership, and payment nodes in the contract. When providing contract compliance review for enterprises, Shenzhen Zhiming Law Firm usually recommends clients to set "isolation clauses" for risk transmission in trade and transportation contracts to avoid a chain reaction triggered by a breach in one link.
3、 Legal support for new business models to be implemented: compliance points for electronic bills of lading and blockchain evidence
On May 1, 2026, Pan Asia Shipping, a subsidiary of COSCO Shipping Group, issued the first blockchain electronic bill of lading in the domestic trade consolidation field at Hainan Free Trade Port. It adopts the ISO 5909 international standard and relies on the GSBN platform to achieve online operation of the entire process of issuance, transmission, and delivery. Previously, the Cyberspace Administration of China and ten other departments jointly issued the "Regulations on Promoting and Standardizing the Application of Electronic Documents", providing guidance for the construction and operation of electronic document systems. The new Maritime Code has established basic rules for the issuance, transfer, and conversion of electronic transport records, but supporting regulations and judicial standards have yet to be implemented.
The confirmation, transfer, and pledge of electronic rights certificates simultaneously touch upon the intersection of property rights rules, contract effectiveness, and evidence law. How to determine the binding force of platform rules on all parties involved in transactions, who endorses the reliability of the system, and how to verify on chain data are difficult to fully cover with the traditional judicial approach in maritime cases. In a maritime freight forwarding contract dispute heard by the Shanghai Maritime Court, the court referred to Article 12 of the "Shanghai Maritime Court Blockchain Evidence Review Guidelines" and confirmed the effectiveness of email evidence for credible timestamp authentication based on electronic data sources, the degree of correlation with case facts, and the connection between electronic data. This judicial approach reminds companies that when using electronic bills of lading and blockchain storage, they must synchronize fixed data sources, transmission paths, and integrity verification records, otherwise they may be put in a passive position in litigation due to insufficient evidence capacity.
Conclusion: Three Compliance Suggestions for Enterprises to Address Maritime Compound Risks
Maritime disputes have shifted from "single point disputes at sea" to "full chain risk events", rooted in changes in business models rather than alterations to maritime legal provisions. The deep penetration of supply chain finance, the confusion of trade terms and transportation contract rights and responsibilities boundaries, and the extension of responsibility boundaries for integrated shipping services are intertwined in the triple mechanism, which connects the risk transmission chain of the entire supply chain.
For import and export enterprises, firstly, establish a consistency review mechanism for contract groups to ensure that trade contracts, transportation contracts, letter of credit terms, and financing agreements are interconnected at the transfer of cargo rights, risk sharing, and payment nodes, avoiding the mismatch of risk transfer timing and transportation contract responsibilities under trade terms such as FOB and CIF; Secondly, pay attention to the evidence compliance of electronic documents. When using blockchain bills of lading or timestamp storage, synchronize the system logs, platform rules, and verification records to reserve evidence basis for potential disputes; Thirdly, embed hierarchical dispute resolution arrangements in dispute resolution clauses, make good use of multiple mechanisms such as "one-stop" dispute resolution centers on water, and allocate rights protection paths guided by commercial efficiency.
Shenzhen Zhiming Law Firm has long been concerned with the intersection of foreign-related maritime, supply chain finance, and commercial disputes. Director Lawyer Shen Jinlong pointed out that the "broad" nature of maritime disputes requires companies to broaden their risk identification horizons, and the "thick" nature requires lawyer services to cover the composite structure of trade, settlement, and financing. Only in this way can we maintain the business bottom line when supply chain risks spill over.
