From: Judiciary answers to 14 Difficult Questionsabout Foreign-related Commercial Trials By Ningbo Intermediate People's Court, Zhejiang Province, PRC

Question: In international trade, the parties agree inwriting that if a dispute is under the non-exclusive jurisdiction of a foreign court, and after the dispute occurs, the foreign party brings a lawsuit to the foreign court and is accepted, and then brings a lawsuit to the Chinese court where the other party is located, can the Chinese court accept it?

Answer: According to the nature of non-exclusive jurisdiction clauses, such clauses cannot exclude the jurisdiction of courts other than non-exclusive jurisdiction courts. As long as our courts have jurisdiction over disputes according to law, they can accept the litigants' lawsuits. If a party brings a parallel lawsuit to a Chinese court after bringing a lawsuit in a foreign court on the same dispute, the Chinese court can also accept it, and is not bound by the principle of no bis in idem.