Judicial oversight safeguards businesses

China's top prosecutorial authority said on Monday that procuratorial bodies nationwide have intensified judicial oversight of unlawful enforcement practices involving businesses, handling more than 19,000 related cases from March 2025 through the end of the year.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate said the effort has helped safeguard the lawful rights and interests of enterprises while promoting law-based enforcement and improving the business environment.

As part of a broader central government initiative to regulate business-related law enforcement, the SPP launched a nationwide special supervision campaign in March targeting unlawful cross-regional enforcement and profit-driven practices. Priority tasks included oversight of criminal case filings involving enterprises, supervision of coercive measures, rectification of improper criminal procedures used in civil and economic disputes, and clearance of long-pending criminal cases.

Ge Xiaoyan, deputy procurator general of the SPP, said all market entities are treated equally, with enterprises under different ownership structures guaranteed equal access to production factors, fair market competition and equal legal protection. She said procuratorates have focused on prominent enforcement and judicial issues, responded to public concerns and business needs, and sought to identify systemic causes to prevent recurring problems.

During the campaign, procuratorial authorities expanded channels for identifying case leads, including dedicated supervisory platforms and coordination with relevant departments, collecting more than 29,000 leads nationwide.

Procuratorates handled more than 9,700 criminal litigation supervision cases involving practices that seriously harmed enterprise rights and fair market competition. Over 3,000 cases were withdrawn, and nonprosecution decisions were issued for more than 3,500 individuals.

Authorities also strengthened supervision of unlawful asset seizures, detentions and freezes that exceeded legal authority, scope, amount or time limits. They supervised the lifting or return of unlawfully seized or frozen assets totaling over 2.6 billion yuan ($0.37 billion) and oversaw changes to coercive measures for more than 820 individuals.

One related case involved a logistics company whose subsidiary was investigated for allegedly issuing fraudulent value-added tax invoices. Investigators froze 17 bank accounts belonging to the company and five affiliates through cross-regional online measures, involving more than 80 million yuan.

After the company reported the issue in 2025, prosecutors found the account freezes were overly broad and lacked proper notification. The scope was clarified and the accounts were unfrozen.

Ge said procuratorates also investigated duty-related crimes that seriously infringed on enterprise rights, focusing on judicial personnel who abused their authority. Disciplinary and legal actions were taken against multiple individuals, and prosecutorial shortcomings were rectified.

In parallel, more than 12,000 individuals in key enterprise positions were prosecuted for crimes including embezzlement, misappropriation of funds and bribery of nonstate employees. More than 16,000 individuals were prosecuted for intellectual property crimes, including trade secret violations and patent counterfeiting.

Du Xueyi, head of the SPP's procuratorial department for economic crime, said the campaign aims to address both immediate problems and institutional gaps.

He said the SPP is working with courts, public security organs and other departments to improve oversight mechanisms and standardize enforcement, while drafting regulatory documents to resolve jurisdictional disputes and inconsistent enforcement standards in cross-regional cases.