How to approach interim measures from Mainland courts in aid of a Hong Kong arbitration

Assets move faster than arbitrations. A counterparty with Mainland operations – warehouses, receivables, bank accounts, equity stakes in domestic subsidiaries – can dissipate or encumber those assets long before a Hong Kong tribunal issues a final award. For a claimant in a Hong Kong-seated arbitration, the practical question is not whether to seek interim relief but where to seek it and in what order.

Since 1 October 2019, parties to a Hong Kong-seated arbitration administered by a qualifying institution have been able to apply directly to Mainland courts for interim measures before or during the arbitral proceedings, under the Arrangement Concerning Mutual Assistance in Court-ordered Interim Measures in Aid of Arbitral Proceedings by the Courts of the Mainland and of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the Interim-Measures Arrangement). This guide sets out the decision the reader faces, the sequence of steps in order, the gate at each stage, and the single most common mistake that defeats applications before they begin.

The sections below move from the threshold question through each procedural gate to the asset-endgame, with a short checklist at the close.

What is the decision the in-house counsel actually faces?

The Interim-Measures Arrangement is a mechanism, not a remedy in itself. Before applying, counsel must ask whether interim relief from a Mainland court is the right instrument for the dispute at hand – or whether an emergency arbitrator, a Hong Kong court order, or a combination of tools better fits the asset profile.

The options broadly fall into three categories. First, an emergency arbitrator application under the HKIAC Administered Arbitration Rules (the 2024 Rules, effective 1 June 2024) can produce an emergency decision ordinarily within 14 days of file transmission. That decision is, however, an arbitral award; its enforceability in the Mainland depends on the arbitral-award mutual-enforcement channel, which carries its own procedural steps.

Second, a Hong Kong court has its own power to grant injunctive or protective relief in support of arbitration. But a Hong Kong court order does not automatically bind Mainland-based assets. Enforcement of that order in the Mainland would require further steps – and historically those steps were not straightforward.

Third – and this is the route this guide addresses – a party to a qualifying Hong Kong-seated arbitration can apply directly to the relevant Mainland Intermediate People's Court (the court at prefecture-city level in the PRC court hierarchy) for interim measures covering property preservation, evidence preservation, or conduct preservation. The Mainland court acts in aid of the Hong Kong arbitration, not as a parallel tribunal.

The choice between these tools turns on three variables: where the assets sit, what type of relief is needed, and how quickly the risk of dissipation is moving. In our cross-border practice, we see parties default to the emergency-arbitrator route without considering whether a Mainland court order gives more direct protection over Mainland-sited assets. The two channels are not mutually exclusive; they address different assets in different forums.

Does the arbitration qualify for the Interim-Measures Arrangement?

Not every Hong Kong arbitration can access the Mainland court channel. The Interim-Measures Arrangement imposes three qualifying conditions at the outset, and failure at any one closes the route entirely.

The arbitration must be seated in Hong Kong. This sounds obvious, but seat and venue are frequently confused. A hearing held in a Mainland city but with a Hong Kong seat is seated in Hong Kong. A hearing held in Hong Kong with a Mainland seat is not. The governing instrument and the arbitration clause must be read together to confirm the seat.

The administering institution must be on the list of qualifying institutions accepted under the Arrangement. The HKIAC is on that list. Parties administering their arbitration under ad hoc rules without a qualifying institution cannot access this route.

The application must be made to the correct Intermediate People's Court. Jurisdiction within the Mainland court system is determined by the location of the assets or the respondent's domicile. An application filed to the wrong court will be declined, and re-filing consumes time the applicant may not have. Before filing, identify every category of Mainland asset and map each to the correct territorial court. Where assets sit in multiple Mainland jurisdictions, multiple applications may be required.

In our experience, the qualification check is where many applications stall before they begin. We have acted on matters where the arbitration clause named Hong Kong as the seat but was administered by a non-qualifying body, leaving the Mainland court channel unavailable. Checking the clause before the dispute crystallises – at the contract-drafting stage – is the more effective intervention. For practical guidance on drafting the clause itself, see our guide on drafting an HKIAC arbitration clause with an offshore counterparty.

What is the step-by-step sequence, and what is the gate at each stage?

The procedural sequence under the Interim-Measures Arrangement runs in a defined order. Skipping or reordering steps does not accelerate the process; it produces rejection.

Step 1: Obtain a letter of acceptance from the administering institution. The applicant must first file a request with the qualifying institution – in most cases, the HKIAC – confirming that the arbitration has been accepted for administration. The institution issues a letter confirming acceptance of the case. This document is a formal prerequisite; the Mainland court will not receive the interim-measures application without it. Where the arbitration has not yet formally commenced, the applicant files a request for arbitration simultaneously with, or immediately before, the institution application. The gate at this step is institutional acceptance. If the institution declines to administer (because the clause is defective, the claim is out of scope, or the filing fees have not been paid), no letter issues and the Mainland court route is closed until the defect is remedied.

Step 2: Prepare the application documents for the Mainland court. The application package must be filed in Chinese (Putonghua). Documents originating in Hong Kong must be translated and, where required under the court's practice, authenticated or notarised. The core package ordinarily includes: the letter of acceptance from the institution; the arbitration agreement (or the contractual clause); a description of the assets to be preserved; evidence of the applicant's claim; and, in a property-preservation application, particulars of the assets and the preservation amount sought. The gate at this step is document completeness and language compliance. Incomplete submissions or untranslated exhibits will be returned.

Step 3: File at the correct Intermediate People's Court and provide security. Mainland courts will generally require the applicant to provide security – a deposit or a guarantee – as a condition of granting interim relief. The quantum of security is set by the court and corresponds to the preservation amount sought or the potential loss to the respondent from an incorrectly granted order. This is a material cost and risk consideration: if the arbitration ultimately fails, the respondent may claim against the security. The gate at this step is security provision. Applications where the applicant cannot or does not provide security within the court's specified time will be dismissed.

Step 4: The court issues its ruling. Mainland courts acting under the Interim-Measures Arrangement operate on an expedited basis. The ruling – granting, modifying, or refusing the application – is issued by the court without notice to the respondent in the first instance (in property-preservation matters). Enforcement of the court's order follows the court's own enforcement process; the order is not itself an arbitral award and does not need to be separately recognised.

Step 5: Notify the tribunal and manage the ongoing matter. Once interim measures are granted, the arbitral tribunal must be informed. The measures are provisional: they last for the duration of the arbitration and are discharged when the final award is issued or when the court determines that grounds for continuation no longer exist. The applicant must be ready to move promptly once the award is issued, using the arbitral-award mutual-enforcement channel to convert the award into a Mainland judgment. The interim measures preserve the position; the final enforcement step is a separate procedure.

What is the most common mistake – and how does this route avoid it?

The single most common mistake we see in our cross-border practice is waiting. Parties treat interim relief as a procedural afterthought – something to think about after the arbitration is well under way, once the defence statement has been filed and the tribunal is constituted. By that stage, a sophisticated counterparty with Mainland assets has had months to move, encumber, or conceal those assets.

The Interim-Measures Arrangement is specifically designed to be used before the arbitration is fully constituted. The application can be made once the institution has accepted the case – before the tribunal is formed, before the first hearing, before the defence is filed. The ability to act at this early stage is the mechanism's core advantage over waiting for the tribunal to issue its own directions on interim relief.

A second mistake is filing a single application for property preservation at one court while overlooking assets in other Mainland jurisdictions. Interim-measures orders bind the assets within the territorial jurisdiction of the issuing court. Assets elsewhere require separate applications. Mapping the full asset picture – bank accounts, real property, equity in Mainland entities, receivables owed by Mainland debtors – is a prerequisite, not a supplement, to the filing exercise.

A third mistake is mischaracterising the relief sought. The Arrangement covers three types of interim measures: property preservation (freezing or restraining assets), evidence preservation (securing documents or physical evidence), and conduct preservation (requiring or restraining specified conduct). Each type has different documentation requirements and different grounds. Filing for property preservation when the real objective is to prevent destruction of electronic records will produce an application that does not fit the facts – and a court that has no basis to grant it.

How does the correct route avoid these errors? By treating the interim-measures application as a parallel track to the arbitration, not a sequential one. The institution filing, the asset-mapping, the translation and authentication of documents, and the security analysis all run concurrently with the commencement of the arbitration. This requires planning before the dispute is formally triggered.

For comparison, the enforcement position after a final award is made is addressed in our briefing on enforcing an arbitral award across jurisdictions.

The sequence above describes the standard position. Your matter turns on the specific assets at risk, the terms of the arbitration clause, the institution administering the case, and the speed at which dissipation risk is moving. These are the variables that determine whether the Mainland court channel is the right route and whether it can be opened in time.

If you are working through this at the pre-dispute or early-dispute stage, that is the right moment. Contact us at info@lockhartyip.com and we can assess the arbitration agreement, map the enforcement route across the relevant jurisdictions, and coordinate interim measures where available.

How does the Mainland court channel interact with Hong Kong court relief?

The Interim-Measures Arrangement does not displace Hong Kong court jurisdiction over interim relief. A party to a Hong Kong-seated arbitration retains the ability to apply to the Court of First Instance for a freezing order, an anti-suit injunction, or other protective relief under the Arbitration Ordinance (Cap. 609). The two channels address different enforcement geographies.

A Hong Kong court order is directly enforceable in Hong Kong and may be relevant where the counterparty has assets or operations here. But it does not extend automatically across the boundary. Conversely, a Mainland court order under the Arrangement reaches Mainland-sited assets directly, without requiring the Hong Kong court's involvement.

In practice, a claimant with exposure on both sides of the boundary may pursue both channels in parallel. The Hong Kong court application protects assets in Hong Kong; the Mainland court application protects Mainland assets. The two applications are independent; granting of one is not a condition for the other. The tribunal does not need to direct either – both are available to the party directly, without the tribunal's involvement, from the moment the institution accepts the case.

What foreign counsel often miss is the timing asymmetry. The Hong Kong court can act on an urgent basis, sometimes within hours. The Mainland court channel, while expedited, involves translation, authentication and security steps that take days or weeks. Planning for both in parallel, from the moment a dispute is anticipated, is the only way to protect all categories of assets in the timeframe that matters.

A practical decision checklist before filing

Before initiating the interim-measures process, run through the following questions in order. Each is a gate. A negative answer requires a solution before the next step proceeds.

Is the arbitration seated in Hong Kong? Check the clause and the institutional rules. Seat and venue are different concepts.

Is the administering institution a qualifying institution under the Interim-Measures Arrangement? The HKIAC qualifies. Verify the position for any other institution before relying on this route.

Has the institution accepted the case? The letter of acceptance is the formal trigger for the Mainland court application. It cannot be substituted.

Have all categories of Mainland assets been identified and mapped to the correct Intermediate People's Court? Each asset in a different territorial jurisdiction requires a separate application to the corresponding court.

Is the applicant in a position to provide security? Security is ordinarily required. The quantum is set by the court. If security cannot be provided promptly, the application will be dismissed and the assets will remain unprotected during the delay.

Have the application documents been prepared in Chinese, with translation and authentication of Hong Kong-origin documents completed? Language compliance is not a technicality; it is a condition of filing.

What type of interim measures is being sought – property preservation, evidence preservation, or conduct preservation? Each has different documentary requirements. The application must match the relief sought.

Is there a parallel Hong Kong court application for assets or counterparty operations in Hong Kong? If so, it should run concurrently, not sequentially.

Has the tribunal been informed – or, if not yet constituted, has the plan been flagged to the institution? The tribunal's ongoing role in managing the preservation order requires it to be kept informed once it is in place.

If an earlier enforcement attempt, a stalled preservation application, or an adverse court ruling has already occurred, a second read of the procedural history can identify the step that failed and the routes still available. Write to us at info@lockhartyip.com with the background and we will assess what remains open.

The asset endgame: connecting interim measures to final enforcement

Interim measures are a bridge, not a destination. The purpose of property preservation is to keep Mainland assets available for enforcement of the final award. Once the arbitration concludes and the award is issued, the enforcement route shifts: the applicant must use the arbitral-award mutual-enforcement channel to convert the award into an enforceable instrument in the Mainland.

Under the 1999 Arrangement and its 2020 Supplemental Arrangement, a Hong Kong arbitral award can be recognised and enforced by Mainland people's courts. Since the 2021 amendment, simultaneous enforcement applications are permitted – meaning a claimant can pursue enforcement in both Hong Kong and the Mainland at the same time, rather than having to elect one forum.

The interim measures granted during the arbitration will typically be discharged or superseded once enforcement of the award is underway. The applicant's task at the enforcement stage is to move quickly enough that the preserved assets remain intact and within the court's jurisdiction when the enforcement process reaches them.

This sequencing – institution acceptance, Mainland court application, security, preservation order, final award, enforcement application – is the full picture. Each step has its own documentary and procedural requirements. Treating it as a single continuous process, planned from the outset, produces better outcomes than approaching each step as a separate decision when it arrives.

Related practices

• Disputes & Arbitration – cross-border arbitration, enforcement, and interim relief across Greater China
• Holding Structures – structuring cross-border entities to protect assets and optimise enforcement routes

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This publication is general information and does not constitute legal advice. For advice on your situation, contact info@lockhartyip.com.