Bidders for business contracts who have defaulted on financial judgments against them will face future restrictions, under a court guideline issued on Thursday.
Bidders, bid agencies and bid professionals, who have failed to carry out court verdicts in the past－for example, debtors who don't pay－will be disqualified from participation in future business contract bids, according to the guideline issued by the Supreme People's Court and eight other government departments.
The guideline, which took immediate effect, is the first to restrict bidding by defaulters, and aims to maintain an orderly bidding market and improve the credibility of the process in the eyes of the public, Meng Xiang, director of enforcement department at the top court, said at a news conference.
The court will post information about defaulters or defaulting departments, including their names and details of their cases, on www.creditchina.gov.cn, for supervisors and other bid agencies to use as a reference.
Eligibility for bidding is lost if the person or entity appears on the website, the guideline said.
In the case of a group of bidders having one or more members in default, the whole group will be disqualified for subsequent bids, it added.
Defaulters have already been restricted in some other areas of life, such as buying rail and flight tickets and applying for loans, the court said. Information on nearly 5 million defaulters has been disclosed to date, while more than 66,000 people were refused as enterprise executives because they did not enforce verdicts.
Zhang Genda, deputy head of the enforcement department of the top court, said: "A man losing credibility will be restricted in almost every industry. When they feel the inconvenience, they will know how important credibility is."
He said that credibility improvement is not only ruled by courts but by government departments－administrations that are "in charge of most of the country's construction bidding projects, including railway, water conservancy and commerce"－which is why they joined hands in issuing the guideline.
Meng Wei, an official in the Law Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, said the guideline will effectively improve the quality of bids and avoid fake bids.
"We'll log on to the website, follow and supervise every step of the bidding on projects at regular times, and release a bidding standard in our section to the public as quickly as we can," she said.
Mi Long, head of the Supervision Department of the National Railway Administration, said strictly examining the identity of bidders will improve construction safety.
"Materials and design of rail construction, especially high-speed rail, must be conducted by bidding. The bid procedure cannot be allowed to go wrong, as it relates to the safety of our country and people, as well as to construction labor and funds," Mi said.
