A partner forwards you a forty-page "China background report" on a counterparty in Hangzhou. It has a logo, an English summary, screenshots of Tianyancha, and a confidence-sounding paragraph about "no material litigation found". You are being asked to rely on it for a £14m supply agreement, or worse, to recommend enforcement against the same entity. The uncomfortable truth is that most China due-diligence packs sold into the London market are aggregator screenshots dressed up as investigation. They are not evidence. They will not survive a CPR Part 31 disclosure conversation, and they will not tell you whether the judgment you are about to obtain is collectable.
This piece sets out what an evidence-grade China due-diligence report should actually contain, in the order a UK litigator, in-house counsel or M&A lead would want to read it.
Start with the registry, but go past the wrapper
Almost every commercial China DD product begins (and quietly ends) at the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, or one of the private aggregators that sit on top of it — Tianyancha, Qichacha, Qixinbao. These are useful, but they are not primary sources, and they are not complete.
An evidence-grade registry search means going to the issuing authority — the local Administration for Market Regulation (AMR) — and obtaining the stamped file (档案), not a screenshot. The stamped file is what a PRC court will accept, what a notary will certify for use abroad, and what counsel can exhibit. It typically includes:
- The full chain of registered capital changes, not just the current figure
- Historical shareholders and equity transfers, with dates and instruments
- Filed articles of association and their amendments
- Director, supervisor and legal representative changes over time
- Branch entities, deregistered subsidiaries and any administrative penalties
The difference matters. An aggregator will tell you the current legal representative. The stamped AMR file will show you that the legal representative was swapped three weeks before your LOI, that registered capital was quietly reduced last year, and that a 35% shareholder exited to a Hong Kong shell. That is the level of detail on which a fraud or shadow-director argument is built.
PRC court searches: what is actually searchable, and what is not
This is where most reports fail quietly. UK counsel often assume PRC litigation history is a single searchable database. It is not.
There are several overlapping public systems — the judgments database (中国裁判文书网), the enforcement information disclosure platform (中国执行信息公开网), the trial process system, and the list of dishonest judgment debtors (失信被执行人). Each captures something different. Each has gaps. Coverage of judgments published online has tightened in recent years, meaning a "clean" judgments search is no longer the comfort it once was.
A serious PRC court search therefore does several things at once:
- Searches the counterparty's exact registered Chinese name, plus historical names, plus common transliterations
- Searches the legal representative and key shareholders as natural persons
- Cross-references the enforcement platform for open and closed enforcement files, including amounts and the executing court
- Pulls any "dishonest debtor" or consumption-restriction orders against individuals connected to the entity
- Where permissible, files targeted inquiries at the basic-level people's courts in the entity's place of registration and principal place of business
The output is not "no litigation found". The output is a matrix: cases as plaintiff, cases as defendant, cases by subject-matter, cases by court level, unresolved enforcement, and gaps the investigator cannot close (with reasons).
Enforcement signals: the question nobody asks early enough
If you are heading into cross-border litigation, the question is not whether you can win. It is whether you can collect. By the time a UK or Hong Kong judgment is in hand and you are looking at recognition in the PRC under the 2023 amendments to the Civil Procedure Law, the asset position has often already moved.
An evidence-grade report should therefore flag enforcement signals before the dispute matures:
- Whether the entity, its legal representative or its controllers appear on the dishonest-debtor list
- Consumption-restriction orders (限制高消费令) — these are a strong tell about cash position
- Equity pledges and equity freezes recorded against the company's shares in its subsidiaries
- Mortgages over real property and chattel mortgages over plant and equipment
- Customs credit rating, tax credit rating and any published administrative penalties
- Pending or recent name changes, capital reductions, or relocations of registered address — classic pre-enforcement manoeuvres
None of these are conclusive on their own. Together, they tell you whether your counterparty is a going concern with collectable assets or a shell being prepared for soft landing.
Asset visibility: realistic, not romantic
UK clients sometimes arrive expecting a US-style asset search. PRC asset visibility is narrower and more formal. What is genuinely available, through proper channels, includes:
- Real property held in the company's name, via targeted searches at the relevant Real Estate Registration Centre (usually requires a case nexus or counsel's standing)
- Equity holdings in other PRC companies, via AMR cross-reference
- Registered intellectual property (trade marks, patents, software copyrights, domain names)
- Vehicle and vessel registrations in limited circumstances
- Litigation-derived asset disclosures once a case is filed and a preservation application is made
What is not available to a private investigator, and what no legitimate report should claim to deliver, are live bank balances, account numbers, or individuals' personal financial records. Anyone offering those is either fabricating or breaking PRC personal information and data security law — and your reliance on such material will not end well in any forum.
What the report should look like on the page
A report that will actually hold up in a UK courtroom, an investment committee, or a PRC enforcement application shares some structural traits:
- Primary documents exhibited, not described. Stamped AMR files, court extracts, and screenshots with URL and capture timestamp.
- A clear methodology section explaining what was searched, in which systems, on which dates, and what could not be searched and why.
- Named investigators or PRC-qualified counsel standing behind the work, not an anonymous "research team".
- A findings register that separates confirmed facts, reasonable inferences, and open questions.
- A translation note — full Chinese names and identifiers preserved, with working English translations, because transliteration errors are how the wrong company ends up sued.
If the report you are holding does not have these features, it is a marketing artefact, not evidence.
Closing note
Serene Jade's China due-diligence service is built around exactly this standard — stamped registry files, structured PRC court and enforcement searches, and findings reviewed by bar-admitted PRC counsel through our Chinese Lawyer app. If you are about to sign, sue, or settle with a Chinese counterparty, that is the level of report you should be reading.
FAQ
Q: We already have a Tianyancha subscription. Why pay for a formal registry search? A: Tianyancha is a useful triage tool, but it is a secondary aggregator and its data lags and occasionally diverges from the AMR file. For anything you intend to exhibit, rely on in negotiation, or use to support a preservation order, you need the stamped primary document.
Q: How recent are PRC court judgment databases — can we trust a "no results" finding? A: Online publication of PRC judgments has narrowed in recent years, so a clean public-database search is no longer a complete answer. A defensible search combines the public judgments site, the enforcement disclosure platform, the dishonest-debtor list, and targeted enquiries at the courts of the entity's domicile.
Q: Can a due-diligence report obtain a Chinese company's bank account balance? A: No — and any provider claiming otherwise is operating outside PRC personal information and data security law. Bank-level disclosure in China is obtained through formal court processes after proceedings are filed, typically via a preservation application supported by counsel.