Fan Zhang Speaks on Cross-Border Dispute Risk Prevention at the 2026 Chengdu High-Tech “Rule of Law Tour”
At the Foreign-Related Legal Services Session, Fan Zhang presented the Litigation-Finance Integrated Cross-Border Dispute Service — from pre-litigation due diligence to judgment enforcement abroad
Fan Zhang, Director of Foreign Legal Affairs at JINGSH Chengdu, was invited as a distinguished guest to the 2026 Chengdu High-Tech Zone “Rule of Law Tour” — Foreign-Related Legal Services Session, organized by the Office of the Comprehensive Law-Based Governance Committee of the CPC Chengdu High-Tech Zone Working Committee and hosted by the Zone’s Political and Legal Affairs Committee. She delivered a themed presentation on cross-border dispute risk prevention for enterprises going global, joined a dialogue with participating company representatives, and closed the session with an enterprise legal needs survey.
The presentation opened with an overview of Chengdu High-Tech Zone’s foreign-related rule-of-law pilot framework — six functional centers supporting enterprises going global.
Part One: The Zone’s Full-Chain Foreign-Related Legal Infrastructure
Fan Zhang opened by mapping the overall architecture of Chengdu High-Tech Zone’s foreign-related rule-of-law pilot area. The framework is built around six functional centers: the International Commercial Dispute Resolution Center, the Foreign-Related Rule-of-Law Research Center, the Foreign-Related Legal Talent Training Center, the Foreign-Related Legal Services Exchange Center, the Foreign-Related Legal Services Brand Incubation Center, and the Foreign-Related Public Legal Services Center.
She then connected these platforms to the zone’s previously released 11 foreign-related legal service products, covering cross-border trade, overseas investment, and intellectual property protection. Taken together, the centers and products form a full-chain legal safeguard system — from risk prevention at the transaction stage, through dispute resolution when conflicts arise, to recovery and enforcement when judgments are won.
Part Two: The Litigation-Finance Integrated Cross-Border Dispute Service
The core of the presentation was the Litigation-Finance Integrated Cross-Border Dispute Service (跨境诉讼财法一体化服务) developed by Fan Zhang’s team. Drawing on her dual qualification in China and California, her role as a DIAC-appointed arbitrator, and her status as a Registered Foreign Lawyer at the Singapore International Commercial Court, she framed the service around a simple observation: winning is not the same as collecting.
Chinese enterprises pursuing cross-border claims routinely encounter four structural pain points:
Long Domestic Litigation Cycles
First-instance proceedings, appeals, and enforcement can span years — during which the counterparty’s solvency and asset position may change fundamentally.
Asset Dissipation After Judgment
Defendants who anticipate an adverse judgment frequently transfer, conceal, or restructure assets between filing and enforcement — leaving plaintiffs with paper victories.
No Hague Judgments Convention Route
China has not yet acceded to the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention. Recognition of Chinese judgments abroad therefore depends on bilateral treaties or reciprocity — both of which require strategic planning well before judgment.
Overseas Recognition Hurdles
Even where a legal route exists, foreign courts examine jurisdiction, service, finality, and public policy. Judgments obtained without these considerations in mind often fail recognition.
Against these pain points, the Litigation-Finance Integrated service fuses legal analysis with financial investigation and runs through the entire dispute lifecycle — not as four disconnected stages, but as one continuous strategy:
Fan Zhang presents the Litigation-Finance Integrated Cross-Border Dispute Service to enterprise representatives.
Pre-Litigation Financial Due Diligence
Before filing: counterparties are screened for asset position, shareholding structure, litigation history, and enforcement records — so the decision to litigate is made on recoverability, not on the merits alone. This front-loaded diligence materially reduces the risk of unenforceable wins.
Precision in Applicable Law & Forum
Accurate characterization of the governing law, forum selection, and jurisdiction strategy — chosen with an eye to where recognition and enforcement will ultimately be sought, including treaty and reciprocity pathways.
Asset Tracing & Interim Measures
During proceedings: asset investigation feeds directly into preservation applications (财产保全), freezing assets early and locking value in place — the single most decisive factor between a judgment that collects and one that does not.
Enforcement-Oriented Representation
From domestic execution to cross-border recognition: enforcement strategy is embedded from day one — identifying where the defendant’s assets actually sit and building the litigation record those jurisdictions will require.
Fan Zhang closed the module with a real-world cross-border trade debt recovery case (anonymized), showing how the integrated model shortened the recovery timeline and preserved value that a purely litigation-track approach would likely have lost to asset dissipation — concrete evidence of the model’s support for Chinese enterprises seeking remedies abroad.
In cross-border disputes, the question is never only “can we win” — it is “where are the assets, and can we reach them.” Law and finance must answer that question together.
— Fan Zhang, Director of Foreign Legal Affairs, JINGSH ChengduClosing: Listening to the Zone’s Enterprises
At the close of the session, Fan Zhang’s team distributed a foreign-related legal services needs survey to participating enterprises, covering cross-border trade, overseas investment, and IP protection.
The event was covered— see the official WeChat report for the Chinese-language coverage.
Facing a Cross-Border Dispute — or Planning Before One Arises?
Fan Zhang and the JINGSH Chengdu team integrate legal strategy with financial investigation across the full dispute lifecycle: due diligence, litigation, asset preservation, and enforcement abroad.
