A foreign rights holder may have a test purchase and a public listing but lack the platform record connecting a store to a particular operator. In another dispute, a logistics record may help connect a shipment to the allegedly infringing goods. Where a non-party holds the missing information, the evidential task is to explain what the record proves and why court assistance is needed.
This article concerns a request for a mainland Chinese civil court to investigate and collect evidence. It does not assume that an overseas company can demand unrestricted access to a platform, bank or carrier database. A request directed to an opposing party and an urgent evidence-preservation application have separate purposes and should be assessed separately.
Establish the fact and the collection obstacle
Article 2 of the Supreme People's Court's Provisions on Evidence in Civil Litigation, revised in 2019, allows a party to apply for court investigation and collection where objective reasons prevent the party from collecting evidence itself. Start with the issue in dispute: operator identity, a transaction, delivery, or another specific fact. Explain how the requested record would address that issue.
Keep the difference between an unavailable record and an inconvenient task clear. Preserve any lawful request already made, the recipient's response, the access rules relied upon and the information still missing. A standard refusal may help explain an access obstacle, but does not by itself show that every requested category is necessary or available.
Do not manufacture a failed request or use another person's credentials to access records. Where approaching the holder might create a genuine risk of evidence loss, discuss preservation and sequencing with counsel before contacting it. Neither ordinary collection nor preservation should be assumed to guarantee that information will still exist.
Name the holder and give usable search leads
Article 20 requires a written application before the evidence period expires. It calls for the person or entity to be investigated, basic information such as its address, the evidence's name or content, the reasons for court collection, the fact to be proved and clear leads. A trading name on a website may not identify the legal entity that actually holds the record.
Build a short schedule with one row for each requested category. Include identifiers already supported by the file: store or account ID, order number, payment reference, tracking number, product code and a justified date range. Explain links between identifiers rather than assuming that a marketplace username, payment recipient and shipping sender are the same business.
- Identify the holder and the basis for believing it has the record.
- Describe the information sought without inventing internal field names.
- Specify the transaction, account and time limits.
- State the disputed fact and why the record matters.
- Document the obstacle to obtaining it through lawful ordinary channels.
For a hypothetical counterfeit-product dispute, a request for the operator information associated with an identified store and relevant transaction period is more intelligible than a demand for every account connected to a brand name. The court must still assess the actual application; a well-organised schedule is preparation, not an assurance of approval.
Separate collection from proof of infringement
A platform record identifying an account holder may help identify a defendant. It does not automatically prove who manufactured the goods, whether the claimant owns enforceable rights, or whether every sale infringed them. State the intended evidential use narrowly and retain the purchase, product-comparison and rights documents needed for the remaining issues.
Article 62 provides for examination of evidence collected by the court on a party's application after the judge explains the collection circumstances. Court collection therefore should not be described as a final finding that the record's substantive contents are correct or that the whole claim succeeds. Plan how to address inconsistent names, incomplete extracts and competing explanations.
Preserve how the record was obtained
Article 21 permits court-collected documentary evidence to be an original or a verified copy; where a copy is used, the investigation record should describe its source and collection. Article 23 addresses original carriers for audiovisual and electronic evidence and, where providing them is genuinely difficult, copies with their source and production process recorded.
These requirements make provenance important. Ask counsel to check what was supplied, who supplied it, the stated extraction period, the meaning of relevant fields and any gaps identified by the holder. Keep the complete received record and make annotated working copies separately. A spreadsheet assembled for litigation should not silently replace the record from which it was derived.
Where technical examination may be needed, Article 24 requires appropriate technical standards to avoid contaminating evidence collected by the court. Raise the need early. Do not carry out destructive testing, alter files or discard packaging merely to simplify the case file. Coordinate any inspection through the authorised procedure.
Manage the timetable and the response
Record the court's evidence deadline, the application date and proof of receipt. Give counsel time to correct an incomplete holder address or ambiguous category before expiry. Filing a collection request is not the same as obtaining the evidence and should not be treated as a general extension of other deadlines.
When material arrives, classify and number it, link it to its proof objective and retain the submission receipt. Article 19 addresses these evidence-organisation and receipt requirements. If nothing is returned, record the actual response; silence does not establish that the opponent destroyed evidence or that the alleged transaction occurred.
For an initial assessment, contact Pan Jianxing with a non-confidential account of the missing fact, likely record holder, available identifiers and next court deadline. The aim is a specific application supported by verifiable leads, followed by a careful assessment of what the collected material actually establishes.
Official sources & legal review
Legal position checked 2026-10-15. Official Chinese texts govern; the English analysis is a summary.
General information about mainland China. The applicable law, rights, evidence and procedure require review for a specific matter.
Pan Jianxing
China-qualified lawyer · Partner, 北京市长安律师事务所
Beijing & Shenzhen
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