Here’s what they are saying….
The new Westlaw China legal database is officially released on July 2014. Westlaw China is updated and optimized in the following functions and contents:
English Version Update Awareness
Westlaw China now provides the English version update awareness service. For influential laws and regulations and documents drew great attention of users, an awareness will be posted at the English translation page to remind that the full-text translation will be available in three or five working days, so as to help users to learn the update status of English laws and regulations in more timely and comprehensive manner.
Summary List of Legal Documents in Focus Areas
With respect to the focus areas with great concern of users, Westlaw China now provides the summary list of legal documents in three areas of Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, Replacement of Business Tax with Value Added Tax, and Bilateral Investment Treaties for better ease of users in finding legal information in relevant areas.
The List of Bilateral Investment Treaties Signed between China and Foreign Countries is also collected under the topic of Bilateral Investment Treaties. The list is classified by continents to help users rapidly browse through the bilateral investment treaties signed between China and foreign countries which have taken effect. Meanwhile the information such as signature date, effective date, etc. is also provided.
Users may access the relevant summary lists by entering the database of laws and regulations and clicking the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone or the Bilateral Investment Treaties, or clicking the Replacement of Business Tax with Value Added Tax under the topic of Taxation. Meanwhile, users may search the laws and regulations in the three areas through Topic of Advanced Search.
Highlighting the Guiding Role of the Catalogue of Main Foreign Exchange Administrative Laws and Regulations Currently in Effect
For the convenience of users, Westlaw China sorted out relevant documents in the database of laws and regulations according to the Catalogue of Main Foreign Exchange Administrative Laws and Regulations Currently in Effect (as of July 31, 2014) issued by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. Users may access the Catalogue under the topic of Foreign Exchange.
The Catalogue also provides the auto links to the corresponding documents in the database of laws and regulations to ease access by users.
Further Enhancing the Validity Status of Laws and Regulations
To help users make accurate judgment of validity status of laws and regulations, Westlaw China continues to expand the coverage range of documents with validity indicated. For some laws and regulations which have not been repealed officially and therefore indicated as valid, where there are documents adversely affected their validity, Westlaw China will indicate such information based on the actual circumstance of validity in question.
For example:
The Provisions of the Shanghai Higher People’s Court on Adjusting the Standard of First Instance Civil and Commercial Cases under the Jurisdiction of Shanghai People’s Courts at All Levels promulgated on March 28, 2008 have not been declared as invalid by any laws or regulations, but according to the Provisions of the Shanghai Higher People’s Court on Trial Implementation of the Standard of First Instance Civil and Commercial Cases under the Jurisdiction of Shanghai People’s Courts at All Levels promulgated on December 29, 2011, the courts of Shanghai shall implement new jurisdiction standard for first instance civil and commercial cases on a pilot basis. The new standard is different from the standard promulgated in 2008. With regard to this Westlaw China will indicate http://qc.wlcn.int.westgroup.com/china-cn/help/images/help_flag03.gifbefore the 2008 document and a reminder of validity in its text page.
Enriching the Legal Adviser Reports on Capital Market and M&A Transactions of Thomson Reuters
Westlaw China further enriches the content related to the legal adviser reports of Thomson Reuters on capital market and M&A transactions by leveraging the strong advantage of Thomson Reuters in the professional information analysis of financial and risk market. The reports include the professional information of legal advisers of offering and M&A trading at the capital market of Asian-Pacific region, such as ranking, number of transactions, transaction value etc., as well as market trend analysis on change of number of transactions and market shares. At present, Westlaw China collects the legal adviser reports on capital market and M&A transactions of Asian-Pacific region (excluding Japan) of 2011-2014.
Meanwhile, Westlaw China keeps on improving the way of displaying such reports to make it more straight forward. Users may directly go through the reports in html page or search the reports through key words in addition to downloading the reports in PDF.
Table of Historic Evolution of Central Promulgation Institutions
To help users better learn the historic evolution of central promulgation institutions of laws and regulations, Westlaw China provides the Table of Historic Evolution of Central Promulgation Institutions, indicated in detail the existence period and legal basis of the promulgation institutions and arranged in chronological order the historic evolution of promulgation institutions involved in the seven institutional reforms of the State Council since 1982. The historic evolution of the central government institutions before 1982 is also listed.
Optimization of Classification of Selected Cases
Westlaw China continues to optimize the classification of selected cases and now provides the classifications of Typical Cases and Cases in Gazettes, and collects the typical cases drawn wide social attention with guidance role in the trial and enforcement work of courts which are determined and issued by the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme people’s Procuratorate.
Users may directly click the topics to browse the typical cases. The selected cases may also be searched out rapidly and accurately by using the search tool.
New Topical Law – Information Safety
In this release, Westlaw China launches the topical law of Information Safety to help the users learn the content in Westlaw China related to information safety in a rapid, convenient and comprehensive way. In Topical Laws, users may browse rapidly through the most updated current awareness, laws and regulations, cases, articles etc; The Key Laws & Regulations lists the key laws and regulations with guiding role.
The Topical Laws is not included in the subscription scope of Westlaw China. Users may only access such content after subscribing relevant content.
Optimization of Search Engine
In this release, Westlaw China improves the accuracy rate of exact search in search results. When the search results obtained are too many, the search engine will automatically make exact search optimization to improve the weight of documents with most relevancy. Meanwhile, by improving the sorting algorithm of relevancy, not only the sorting speed is greatly improved, the sorting results become more intelligent too.
Improvement of Intelligent Links
In this release, Westlaw China improves the accuracy of intelligent links through adjusting the matching rules of intelligent links directed to specific articles.
