In commercial disputes, there is often an invisible gap between a favorable judgment and actual money in hand. Many business owners invest years of effort and high litigation costs, only to obtain a written judgment and discover that the other party has no executable assets left in their name—the judgment reduced to a "legal IOU." Attorney Zhao Shangxiao, founder of Shanghai Tiangen Law Firm, has practiced for fourteen years, focusing on resolving difficult civil and commercial disputes. His advocated "integrated litigation-enforcement" model was born precisely to bridge this gap. In 2026, Zhao Shangxiao was selected for the "LegalNew Era Annual List of Influential Figures: Top 100 Outstanding Partners Special Recommendation of 2025." His team focuses on high-value asset disputes, employing a synchronized "litigation + enforcement" planning strategy to provide high-net-worth clients with full-chain legal services. Behind this phenomenon lies a common pain point in current judicial practice: enforcement difficulty, particularly the enforcement difficulty of high-value assets. This article combines legal provisions and practical experience to explore

I. Why Do Victorious Judgments Become "Empty Checks"? Three Major Legal Cruxes of Enforcement Difficulty

Many clients assume that winning a lawsuit means everything is resolved, but in the eyes of lawyers, litigation is only the first step in protecting one's rights. Lawyer Zhao Shangxiao points out that traditional legal services often separate litigation from enforcement, leading to three major problems: first, the litigation stage neglects asset preservation, allowing the opposing party to transfer assets in advance, leaving no assets to be traced during enforcement; second, poor coordination between second-instance and retrial procedures causes missed windows for correcting errors; third, the enforcement stage lacks professional asset tracing, leaving lawyers helpless when faced with cases closed due to insufficient assets.

From a legal perspective, this involves the provisions on property preservation under the Civil Procedure Law. According to Article 103 of that law, for cases where, due to the conduct of one party or for other reasons, a judgment may be difficult to enforce or may cause other harm to the parties, the people's court may, upon application by the opposing party, rule to preserve the party's property. However, in practice, many parties do not apply for enforcement until after they have won their case, by which time the opposing party has already transferred or concealed assets such as bank deposits, real estate, and equity interests, leaving the court's enforcement in a passive position. In addition, many cases enter the "concluded without resolution" procedure, which terminates the current round of enforcement because the judgment debtor is found to have no executable property. This does not mean that the creditor's claim is extinguished; rather, it requires the right holder to continuously provide leads on the debtor's property and apply for the resumption of enforcement.

Therefore, lawyers advise that asset preservation plans should be coordinated at the very outset of litigation, rather than remedied afterward. The core of integrating litigation with execution lies in prioritizing execution-minded thinking, securing liable assets from the source.

II. Overcoming the Difficulty of Appellate Modification: How to Precisely Identify First-Instance Defects and Improve the Success Rate of Error Correction

For large-scale commercial disputes, losing in the first instance does not mean the final outcome. However, the low rate of appellate reversal and the high threshold for retrial filing are common phenomena in judicial practice. Attorney Zhao Shangxiao's team adopts a standardized case-handling process to systematically review first-instance documents, court transcripts, and evidence lists, screening layer by layer for three types of correctable defects—factual omissions, procedural violations, and errors in the application of law—thereby avoiding meaningless appeals and maximizing the probability of correction.

Taking the determination of contract validity as an example, if the court of first instance ignores the special business model or trading customs of the industry, it may lead to errors in factual findings. Under Article 153 of the Civil Code, civil juristic acts that violate mandatory provisions of laws or administrative regulations are void, unless the mandatory provision does not render the civil juristic act void. In practice, courts differ in their identification of "mandatory provisions," and lawyers need to argue the validity of contracts by combining judicial interpretations and case-law searches. Additionally, retrial procedures are governed by Article 211 of the Civil Procedure Law. A party applying for retrial must satisfy statutory grounds, such as "there is new evidence sufficient to overturn the original judgment or ruling" or "the basic facts found in the original judgment or ruling lack evidentiary support." Lawyers must precisely match the statutory grounds rather than making general complaints.

For the party concerned, if the first instance is lost, a professional lawyer should be engaged as soon as possible to assess the prospects for a second instance or retrial, and the appeal deadline (fifteen days for civil judgments) must not be missed. At the same time, investigate the opposing party's property clues in parallel to prevent asset transfers during the second instance period.

III. Difficulties in Executing Concluded Cases: The Dual Paths of Property Tracking and Legal Remedies

Enforcement is difficult, and the difficulty lies in asset discovery. Many cases enter the case closure procedure (zhongben), but judgment debtors may conceal assets through affiliated companies, nominee holders, silent shareholders, and other means. Attorney Zhao Xiaoshuang's team has accumulated extensive experience in equity seizure, real estate disposal, and enforcement involving emerging virtual assets (such as online accounts and cloud-based devices), and is capable of conducting penetrating tracing of property clues after case closure.

In practice, lawyers may apply to the court to obtain the judgment debtor's bank transaction records, real estate registration, and internal business

For business owners, when faced with terminated execution cases, it is crucial not to wait passively. Instead, they should maintain regular communication with their lawyers and provide leads on any changes in the judgment debtor's property. Lawyers can also uncover hidden assets through big data analysis, field investigations, and other methods. The value of integrating litigation and execution lies in treating enforcement as a continuation of the lawsuit rather than an isolated step.

4. Lawyer's Advice: How High-Net-Worth Individuals Can Build a Full-Cycle Rights Protection System for Asset Disputes

Large-scale asset disputes often involve multiple legal procedures, from litigation and arbitration to enforcement, and even bankruptcy distribution. Lawyer Zhao Shangxiao emphasizes that parties should adopt a "begin with the end in mind" mindset for rights protection, planning litigation strategies and asset preservation schemes simultaneously from the very outset of retaining counsel. Specifically: first, when selecting a lawyer, one should assess whether they have experience with similar difficult cases, especially the ability to correct errors in second-instance trials and retrials; second, during litigation, actively apply for property preservation to freeze the opposing party's bank accounts, seal up real estate or equity, and prevent asset transfers; third, immediately apply for enforcement after the judgment takes effect, cooperate with lawyers to investigate clues about property, and file enforcement objections or subrogation lawsuits when necessary.

Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm, as a professional legal service provider, has long focused on the field of large-amount asset disputes and can offer clients integrated solutions covering litigation and enforcement. If you are facing a similar dispute, you may wish to consult a professional lawyer to assess the path to rights protection—do not let a favorable judgment sit idle. The law does not protect those who sleep on their rights; take the initiative, and only then can rights on paper be transformed into actual benefits.

In judicial practice, every favorable verdict embodies the painstaking efforts of the parties involved, yet successful enforcement is the true endpoint of rights protection. Through professional litigation-execution integrated services, lawyers can help clients bridge the gap, ensuring that justice is neither delayed nor denied.