Foreign Investment Complaint Handling Process

Measures of the Shanghai Municipality on handling complaints from Foreign-invested Enterprises

Chapter 1 General Provisions

Article 1In accordance with the Foreign Investment Law of the People's Republic of China, the Regulations for the Implementation of the Foreign Investment Law of the People's Republic of China, the Measures of the Ministry of Commerce on Handling Complaints from Foreign-invested Enterprises and the Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on Foreign Investment, and in light of the actual conditions of Shanghai, these measures have been formulated for purpose of handling complaints from foreign-invested enterprises in Shanghai in a timely and effective manner, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of foreign investment, and continuously improving environment for foreign investment.

Article 2“Complaints from foreign-invested enterprises” refer to: applications made by foreign-invested enterprises or foreign investors (hereinafter collectively referred to as the “Complainant”) to the complaint handling agency for coordinating and resolving the matters, for the reason that they allege that the administrative actions of the administrative agency in this municipality (including any organization authorized by laws and regulations to manage public affairs) and its staff members (hereinafter collectively referred to as the “Complainee”) have infringed their legitimate rights and interests; the complainant's attempts to report the municipality's problems in the investment environment to the complaint handling agency and to suggest that relevant policy measures should be improved; the complainant's attempts to submit to the complaint handling agency a proposal that the administrative agency of this municipality be required to coordinate and solve the problems related to its investment, production and operation. The complaint handling agency mentioned in the preceding paragraph refers to the department or agency of this municipality responsible for accepting and handling complaints from foreign-invested enterprises.

Article 3The Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce shall, in conjunction with other relevant departments, establishes a municipal joint meeting system for handling complaints from foreign-invested enterprises (hereinafter referred to as the “Joint Meeting”) to coordinate and facilitate the handling of complaints from foreign-invested enterprises at the municipal level, guide and supervise the handling of complaints from foreign-invested enterprises in all districts, and study and put forward related policies and measures for improving the investment environment of this municipality.

The deputy head of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce in charge of foreign investment administration servers as the convener of the joint meeting. The office of the joint meeting, located at the department of foreign investment administration of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, is responsible for the day-to-day work of the joint meeting.

Each district shall establish a district-level joint meeting system for handling complaints from foreign-invested enterprises to coordinate and promote the handling of complaints from foreign-invested enterprises within the district.

Article 4The Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce shall be responsible for handling the following complaints: complaints on the administrative actions of relevant municipal departments and people's governments of all districts and their staff members; suggestions to relevant municipal departments and people's governments of all districts to improve relevant policy measures; problems that need to be solved through coordination by the relevant municipal departments and the people's governments of all districts.

The Municipal Center for Complaints by Foreign-invested Enterprises (hereinafter referred to as the “Municipal Foreign Investment Complaint Center”), seated at the Shanghai Foreign Investment Association, shall be responsible for accepting and handling the complaints specified in the preceding paragraph, organizing the publicity of policies and regulations related to foreign investment, providing training in handling complaints from foreign-invested enterprises in Shanghai, promoting experience in handling complaints, putting forward relevant policy suggestions, and supervising all districts in effectively handling complaints from foreign-invested enterprises, and effectively avoiding the occurrence of complaints.

Article 5The leading departments in charge of foreign investment in each district (hereinafter collectively referred to as the district commerce department) shall be responsible for handling the following complaints: matters involving the administrative actions of the relevant departments of the district and their staff members; suggestions made for relevant departments of the district to improve relevant policy measures; problems that need to be solved through coordination by the relevant departments of the district.

The people's government of each district shall designate a department or agency as the district's center for complaints from foreign-invested enterprises (hereinafter referred to as the district foreign investment complaint center) to accept and handle the complaints specified in the preceding paragraph.

Article 6The complaint handling department shall adhere to the principles of fairness, justice, legality, and hierarchical responsibilities, handle in a timely manner the issues reported by complainants, and coordinate efforts to improve relevant policy measures.

Article 7Complainants shall truthfully report the facts of complaints, provide evidence, and actively assist related departments in handling complaints.

Article 8 The chambers of commerce and associations set forth in Article 27 of the Foreign Investment Law of the People's Republic of China may, by reference to these Measures, report to the complaint handling agency the problems existing in the investment environment raised by their members, and offer specific recommendations on policy measures.

Chapter 2 Submission and Acceptance of Complaints

Article 9The complainant shall submit complaint materials when submitting a complaint. The complainant can submit complaint materials online and check the progress and results of the acceptance on the "the Government Online-Offline Shanghai Portal" or the Shanghai Foreign Investment Promotion Service Platform (www.investsh.org.cn). Complaint materials can also be submitted on-site, or by letter, fax, e-mail, etc.

The Municipal Commission of Commerce shall publish the address, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail addresses of the municipal and district foreign investment complaint centers to facilitate the complainants to lodge complaints.

Article 10The complaint materials shall include the following contents: the name of the complainant, mailing address, contact person and contact information, the qualification certification of the subject, the date of filing; the name, mailing address, contact person and contact information of the respondent or of the relevant departments as stated in item two and three of term two of Article 2; clear complaints and complaint requests, suggestion of policy measures, or issues that need to be coordinated and resolved by relevant departments; relevant facts, evidences and reasons, as well as relevant legal basis if there is any; statement of whether the circumstances listed in item seven, eight and nine of Article 13 of the Measures exist.

The complaint materials should be written in Chinese. Where the originals of relevant evidence and materials are written in a foreign language, accurate and complete Chinese translations shall be submitted.

Article 11The complainant may entrust others to make a complaint. If the complainant entrusts others to make a complaint, in addition to the materials specified in Article 10 of the Measures, the power of attorney and the identity certificate of the trustee shall also be submitted. The power of attorney shall specify the entrusted matters, authority and the term of entrustment.

Article 12 If the complaint materials are incomplete, the complaint agency shall notify the complainant in writing within 7 working days after receiving the complaint materials to complement or rectify the materials within 15 working days. This notice of complement and rectification shall specify the items to be complemented and rectified, and the deadline.

Article 13Complaint will not be accepted by the complaint agency if: the subject of the complaint is not a foreign-invested enterprise or a foreign investor; it applies for coordination and settlement of civil and commercial disputes with other natural persons, legal persons or other organizations, or for matters that do not belong to the scope of complaints by foreign-invested enterprises specified in the Measures; those that do not fall within the scope of this complaint agency; the complaint materials still fail to meet the requirements of Article 10 of the Measures after the complaint agency notified the corrections in accordance with Article 12 of the Measures; the evidence  is forged or altered by the complainant, or obviously without factual basis; it is repeated submitted to the same complaint agency without new evidence or legal basis; the same complaint has been accepted, processed or concluded by the higher-level complaint agency; the same complaint has been accepted, processed or concluded by the department of complaints and proposals; the same complaint has entered or completed administrative review, administrative litigation and other procedures.

Article 14The complaint agency shall decide on whether to accept the complaint or not within 7 working days after receiving complete complaint materials.

Complaints that meet the requirements shall be accepted, and a notice of complaint acceptance shall be issued to the complainant through letters or on-site collection, etc. With the consent of the complainant, the complaint acceptance notice can also be sent through the “Government Online-Offline Shanghai Portal” or the Shanghai Foreign Investment Promotion Service Platform or by email.

The complaint agency shall issue a notice of non-acceptance to the complainant within 7 working days and explain the reasons for the non-acceptance if the complaints do not meet the requirements. If it is not within the processing scope of this complaint agency, the complaint agency may inform the complainant to lodge a complaint with other complaint agencies.

Chapter 3 Processing of Complaints

Article 15After accepting a complaint, the complaint agency shall designate staff to fully communicate with the complainant and the respondent or relevant departments, learn about the situation, coordinate and deal with it in accordance with the law, and promote the proper settlement of the complaint or related issues.

Article 16 According to the different circumstances of the complaint, the complaint agency shall handle the complaint in the following ways: the complaint agency shall learn more about the situation from the complainant, and request the complainant to provide materials or other necessary information through telephone, e-mail, face-to-face communication or on-site visits, etc.; the complaint agency shall learn about the situation from the complainant or relevant departments, and invite them to jointly study and solve the complained matter or related problems through telephone, e-mail, face-to-face communication, or written official letter, etc.; if there is complaint on investment environment, improvement of relevant policy measures are suggested to be proposed; the complainant and the respondent or relevant departments can be jointly invited to meetings to state their opinions and propose solutions to the problem; relevant experts’ opinions on professional issues can be solicited according to the needs of complaint handling; other handling methods deemed appropriate by the complaint agency can be adopted.

Article 17When the complaint agency handles the complaint, the complainant shall provide necessary assistance, and the respondent or relevant departments and their staff shall cooperate.

Article 18When the complainant and the respondent sign a settlement agreement, they shall specify the matters and results of the settlement. The settlement agreement concluded in accordance with the law is binding on the complainant and the respondent. If the respondent fails to perform the effective settlement agreement, it shall be dealt with in accordance with Article 41 of the Regulations for the Implementation of the Foreign Investment Law of the People's Republic of China.

Article 19The complaint agency shall settle the complaint accepted within 60 working days from the date of complaint acceptance. For complaints involving multiple departments and complex situations, the processing period may be extended appropriately.

Article 20: Complaint handling shall be terminated under any of the following circumstances: the complainant agrees to terminate after the coordination by complaint agency; the complaint does not conform to the facts, or the complainant refuses to provide materials so that the relevant facts cannot be ascertained; the complaint that has no legal basis; the complainant withdraws the complaint in writing; the complainant no longer meets the qualifications as the subject of the complaint; the complainant does not participate in the complaint handling work without proper reason for 30 consecutive days after receiving contact by the complaint agency.

During the processing of the complaint handling, if the circumstances listed in item seven, eight and nine of Article 13 of the Measures occur, it shall be deemed that the complainant has withdrawn the complaint in writing.

After the completion of the complaint handling, the complaint agency shall, within 3 working days, notify the complainant in writing of the complaint handling result through the “Government Online-Offline Shanghai Portal”, the Shanghai Foreign Investment Promotion Service Platform, email, letter or on-site pickup.

Article 21If the complaint cannot be concluded in accordance with Article 20 of the Measures within one year from the date of acceptance, the Municipal Commission of Commerce and the district commerce departments shall report the relevant situation to the people's government at corresponding level and put forward relevant work recommendations.

Article 22If the complainant disagrees with the decision of non-acceptance by the complaint agency or the result of the complaint handling, he may file the original complaint with the higher-level complaint agency.

Article 23Complaint work agencies shall establish and improve internal management system, and take effective measures in accordance with the law to protect the commercial secrets, confidential business information and personal privacy of the complainant learned during the complaint handling process.

Chapter 4 Management system of complaint work

Article 24The complaint agency shall establish a complaint file management system, timely, comprehensively and accurately record the acceptance and handling of related complaints, and archive them on an annual basis.

Article 25Each district foreign investment complaint center shall report to the Municipal Foreign Investment Complaint Center the status of complaints in the previous month within the first 4 working days of each month, including the number of complaints received, the progress of processing, the details of the completed complaints, and the suggestion on relevant policy measures.

The Municipal Foreign Investment Complaint Center shall report to the Joint Meeting Office the status of complaints in the previous month within the first 7 working days of each month.

Article 26In the process of handling complaints, district commerce departments shall report to the Municipal Commission of Commerce and offer suggestion on improving the policy measures if they find that there are universal problems in the work, or that the relevant regulatory documents violate legal provisions or are obviously inappropriate.

Article 27 The Municipal Foreign Investment Complaint Center shall submit a position paper on the protection of the rights and interests of foreign-invested enterprises to the Joint Meeting Office on an annual basis, summarizing the typical cases, key issues, policy suggestion, advices on enhancing investment protection and improving investment environment reported by foreign-invested enterprises, foreign investors, chambers of commerce, associations, district governments or relevant departments.

Chapter 5 Appendix

Article 28 No unit or individual is allowed to suppress or retaliate against the complainant if the complainant reports problem or applies for coordination through the foreign investment complaint work mechanism.

Article 29The complaints of enterprises invested by investors from Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macao Special Administrative Region, Taiwan Region and Chinese citizens residing abroad shall be handled with reference to the Measures.

Article 30Lingang Special Area, Hongqiao Business District, and national and municipal development zones may refer to the Measures to handle complaints from foreign-invested enterprises.

Article 31The Municipal Commission of Commerce is responsible for the interpretation of the Measures.

Article 32The Measures shall come into force on July 1, 2021. According to the Order No. 46 of Shanghai Municipal People’s Government on April 30, 2021, the Regulations on Complaints and the Handling of Complaints of Foreign-Invested Enterprises in Shanghai (promulgated by Order No. 22 of Shanghai Municipal People’s Government on December 18, 1989, amended by Order No. 22 of Shanghai Municipal People’s Government on December 20, 2010 ) has been repealed.