Rules for Handling Arbitration Cases about Employment and Personnel Disputes has come into force on July 1st, 2017

In order to handling with labor disputes properly under the new situation, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security amended “Rules for Handling Arbitration Cases about Employment and Personnel Disputes”. Comparing to the 2009 Version, the 2017 Version has amended a lot. Some key contents are listed as follows.

1. To further define the Jurisdiction
1) Considering the registration place of an employer may be different from the place where the employer is actually located, the 2017 Version added that the arbitration committee of the main place where the employer is actually located shall have the jurisdiction over it.

2) To explicit the rules of multiple choices over the jurisdiction: where one of the two parties applies for arbitration to arbitration committee at the place where the labor contract is performed and the other does so at the place where the employer is located, the labor dispute shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the former. If there are multiple places where labor contracts are performed, the arbitration committee that first accepts the request shall have jurisdiction. If the place where labor contract is performed is not clear, arbitration committee at the place where the employer is located shall have jurisdiction.

2. Canceling the hearing of the courts in dealing with jurisdiction protest, namely, where a party files a protest over the jurisdiction, the arbitration committee shall review the protest, if the protest is supported, the arbitration committee shall transfer the case, if not, the arbitration committee shall reject the protest in written.

3. Adding the rules for application to extend time limit for evidence presentation, which means any party can apply to the arbitration committee for extending time limit for evidence presentation.

4. Adding the ruling of “One Disputed Matter, One Time Arbitration”, namely that for a notice of rejection issued by the arbitration committee, or during the process of arbitration or litigation, or mediation, adjudication or judgment has taken effect, the applicant applies for another arbitration based on same facts, reasons and claims, then such application shall not be accepted.

5. Adding the reasons for suspension of cases, mainly for the situation that any party fails to exercise the civil rights normally, or suffer from force majeure, or the situation that the case is pending due to the trial of another case.

6. Adding summary procedures, namely that it clarifies the applicable circumstances and not applicable circumstances, the procedural requirements on the summary procedures.