A practical guide to interim measures from Mainland courts in aid of a Hong Kong arbitration

The assets that matter are often not where the arbitration sits. A counterparty with operating accounts, inventory or real property on the Mainland can dissipate those assets during a Hong Kong-seated proceeding – and an award obtained months or years later may find nothing to enforce against. The question a claimant must answer early is not whether to pursue interim relief, but which court can reach the assets and how fast.

Since 1 October 2019, a party to a Hong Kong-seated arbitration may apply to a Mainland people's court for interim measures – including asset preservation orders – 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). The application is made before or after the arbitration is filed but before the final award is issued. Hong Kong is the only jurisdiction outside the Mainland whose seated arbitrations can access this route.

This guide sets out the decision the reader faces, the sequence in order with the gate at each step, the mistake most applicants make, and a practical checklist for any cross-border team approaching this route.

What is the decision, and why does it arise?

The Interim Measures Arrangement solves a structural problem. Hong Kong is the seat and the arbitral institution is typically the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC – the leading administered arbitration body in Hong Kong). But the respondent's attachable assets may be situated entirely on the Mainland. Without the Arrangement, a claimant's only path to freezing those assets before an award would be to wait for the award and then register it in the Mainland under the separate mutual enforcement regime – a process that takes considerably longer.

The Arrangement changes that calculus. It allows a people's court to order asset preservation – 财产保全 (cáichǎn bǎoquán, the Mainland procedural mechanism for freezing assets before or during litigation or arbitration) – on the application of a party to a qualifying Hong Kong arbitration. The practical effect is that a claimant can freeze the counterparty's Mainland assets at the beginning of the dispute rather than at the end.

The decision the reader faces is therefore a sequencing decision, not a binary one. Do you apply for interim measures immediately on filing? Do you apply before filing? And what are the conditions that govern each timing choice? Getting the sequence wrong does not merely delay relief – it can close the route entirely.

In our cross-border disputes practice, we see this issue arise most acutely in three patterns: a joint-venture dispute where the Mainland partner controls the operating entity; a supply-chain claim where the counterparty's only material assets are warehoused inventory or receivables on the Mainland; and a shareholding dispute where the target shares are registered in a Mainland entity. All three share the same structural feature: the commercial leverage sits on the Mainland, not in Hong Kong.

Which institutions qualify, and does your arbitration agreement cover them?

The Interim Measures Arrangement does not extend to every Hong Kong arbitration. Only arbitrations administered by institutions that have been accepted by the Mainland authorities under the Arrangement qualify. As at the date of this guide, the accepted institutions include the HKIAC, the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission Hong Kong Arbitration Center (CIETAC HK), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) case management office in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Maritime Arbitration Group (HKMAG) and several others that have been formally designated. Purely ad hoc arbitrations – those conducted without institutional administration – do not qualify.

This has an immediate drafting implication. An arbitration clause that names a qualifying institution and specifies Hong Kong as the seat is the threshold condition. A clause that names a non-qualifying body, or that is silent as to seat and institution, does not automatically engage the Arrangement. For existing contracts with deficient clauses, the question becomes whether a subsequent arbitration agreement, a supplemental submission agreement, or a curial order can remedy the position before the application is filed.

We regularly advise on this gate before a dispute has crystallised. The time to confirm the clause satisfies the Arrangement's conditions is before the relationship deteriorates, not after the respondent begins moving assets. See our note on drafting an HKIAC arbitration clause for a counterparty in another jurisdiction for the structural considerations at that earlier stage.

How does the sequence actually run – step by step?

The Arrangement prescribes a specific procedural channel. Each step is a gate: failure at any one does not merely slow the application, it can disqualify it. The sequence below reflects the mechanism as established by the Arrangement and the HKIAC's administrative practice.

Step 1 – File the arbitration or establish the procedural basis. An application for interim measures under the Arrangement may be made before the arbitration is commenced – but only if the applicant files the arbitration application at the qualifying institution within thirty days of the court order being issued. If the arbitration has already been filed, that condition is satisfied. The practical implication is that a party who wants pre-filing relief must move quickly: the thirty-day window from the court order to institutional filing is firm.

Step 2 – Obtain a letter of acceptance from the institution. Before approaching a Mainland court, the applicant must obtain documentation from the qualifying institution confirming that it has accepted the case. For HKIAC proceedings this is a letter or notice of receipt of the case. This document is a formal prerequisite for the Mainland court application. It is not a formality that can be supplied retrospectively after the court has been approached.

Step 3 – Identify the competent Mainland court. Jurisdiction rests with the Intermediate People's Court (中级人民法院) at the place where the respondent is domiciled or where the property to be preserved is situated. If the assets are in multiple Mainland locations, separate applications may be required to the courts at each location. This is a jurisdiction question, not a convenience question – filing in the wrong court voids the application.

Step 4 – Assemble the application materials. The application bundle must be prepared in Chinese and must include: (i) the application for preservation; (ii) the institutional acceptance documentation from Step 2; (iii) evidence of the arbitration agreement (typically the underlying contract containing the arbitration clause); (iv) evidence of the facts and legal basis supporting the relief; and (v) a security undertaking or evidence of security. Each document must be translated and authenticated to the standard required by Mainland procedural rules. Missing or insufficiently authenticated documents are the most common cause of delay at this stage.

Step 5 – Security for the preservation order. Mainland courts will ordinarily require the applicant to provide security – a financial guarantee or equivalent – before issuing a preservation order. The amount and form are at the court's discretion and will reflect the value of the assets sought to be preserved. Failure to provide security on time, or in the form the court requires, will result in the application being refused. Applicants without established Mainland banking relationships should plan for this step well in advance.

Step 6 – The court reviews and issues (or refuses) the order. Under the Mainland's civil procedure rules, a court dealing with a pre-litigation or arbitration preservation application must rule on the application promptly – generally within forty-eight hours for urgent matters, though the standard timeline may run longer in practice. If the order is granted, it takes effect immediately and the assets are frozen. If refused, the applicant may reapply with additional evidence or seek an alternative route.

Step 7 – Post-order steps and coordination with the arbitration. Once the preservation order is in place, the arbitration proceeds on its normal timeline at the qualifying institution. The preservation order is a temporary measure tied to the pendency of the arbitration. It will lapse if the arbitration is not prosecuted diligently or if the underlying award is not followed by enforcement action in a timely manner. Coordination between the Mainland-side counsel handling the court application and the arbitration team in Hong Kong is therefore essential from Step 1 onwards.

What does the common mistake look like – and how is it avoided?

The most consistent error we see is treating the interim-measures application as an afterthought – something to be considered once the arbitration is underway and the merits strategy is settled. By that point, the practical opportunity to freeze meaningful assets has often passed. A respondent who anticipates a claim will begin restructuring its Mainland balance sheet from the moment it receives notice of the arbitration. The institutional acceptance letter required at Step 2 is typically issued quickly by HKIAC, but the translation, authentication and security arrangements at Steps 4 and 5 each take time. In practice, several weeks can pass between the decision to apply and the moment the court actually receives a complete, compliant bundle. That is the window in which assets move.

The second error is institutional mismatch. An applicant who has filed an ad hoc arbitration under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules without naming a qualifying Mainland-accepted institution as administrator has no route under the Arrangement. Re-filing or restructuring the arbitration at that point – particularly if the respondent contests jurisdiction – introduces a further delay that the respondent can exploit.

The third error is jurisdictional. Applicants sometimes identify the counterparty's registered address as the relevant court, without investigating where the attachable assets actually sit. A preservation order issued by the court at the respondent's domicile cannot freeze assets situated in a different Mainland city unless that court's territorial jurisdiction extends to them. A preliminary asset-tracing exercise – identifying bank accounts, real property, shareholdings and receivables – should precede the court selection at Step 3.

A European fund with a Mainland joint-venture counterparty came to our desk in early 2025 after discovering its arbitration clause named an institution that was not accepted under the Arrangement. The clause was well-drafted in other respects – HKIAC rules, Hong Kong seat – but had incorrectly identified the case management body in a way that created ambiguity. We worked with locally licensed counsel on the Mainland side to prepare a supplemental submission agreement accepted by both parties before the dispute formally crystallised, preserving the route. The preservation application subsequently proceeded without that procedural obstacle. That outcome required early action; the same solution was not available once formal proceedings began and the parties' positions hardened.

How does this route interact with Hong Kong's own interim-relief mechanisms?

The Arrangement route and Hong Kong's domestic interim-relief powers operate in parallel, and a well-advised claimant will consider both. Under the Arbitration Ordinance (Cap. 609), a party to an HKIAC arbitration may apply to the Hong Kong courts for interim measures in support of the arbitration, including injunctions and asset-freezing orders. Those orders reach assets situated in or passing through Hong Kong – not assets on the Mainland.

Where the counterparty's assets straddle both jurisdictions, a coordinated application – Mainland preservation under the Arrangement, Hong Kong injunction under Cap. 609 – can address the full asset picture. The two applications are procedurally independent but must be timed and worded consistently. An applicant that obtains a Hong Kong injunction first and then applies to a Mainland court must ensure the Mainland application does not misrepresent the existing Hong Kong order. Inconsistency in the two bundles is a basis on which a Mainland court may refuse or revisit the application.

The HKIAC's emergency-arbitrator procedure is a third option. Under the 2024 HKIAC Administered Arbitration Rules (effective 1 June 2024), an emergency arbitrator process is ordinarily completed within fourteen days of the transmission of the file to the emergency arbitrator. An emergency arbitrator order can be sought in parallel with or before the Mainland court application, and it may be more straightforward where the relief sought is Conduct-based (for example, an order restraining a party from transferring assets) rather than an attachment of identified Mainland property. However, an emergency arbitrator order is an arbitral order, not a court order. It does not have direct enforcement power in the Mainland courts in the way that a preservation order issued under the Arrangement does. Parties seeking to enforce emergency-arbitrator relief on the Mainland must do so through the separate award enforcement regime, which is a longer process.

For a fuller picture of enforcement routes once an award is final, see our guide on enforcing an arbitral award through Hong Kong and offshore structures.

The sequence above describes the standard position. Your matter turns on the documents, the jurisdictions actually engaged, and the order of steps – which is where the route is won or lost. For a structured assessment of your interim-measures position across Hong Kong and the Mainland, write to us at info@lockhartyip.com.

Decision checklist before you file

The following checklist distils the steps above into the questions a cross-border legal team should be able to answer before filing either the arbitration or the Mainland court application. Each item is a gate.

• Qualifying institution confirmed. Does the arbitration clause name an institution accepted under the Interim Measures Arrangement? If the clause is silent or ambiguous, has a supplemental submission agreement been prepared and signed?
• Seat confirmed as Hong Kong. Does the clause expressly specify Hong Kong as the seat, or is the seat otherwise determinable as Hong Kong? Is there any residual ambiguity that a respondent could exploit?
• Asset-tracing completed. Has a preliminary investigation identified the location, nature and estimated value of the respondent's attachable Mainland assets – bank accounts, real property, shareholdings, receivables?
• Competent court identified. Has the correct Intermediate People's Court been identified for each asset location? Where assets sit in multiple cities, has a parallel or sequential filing strategy been prepared?
• Institutional acceptance letter obtainable. Has the arbitration been filed (or is it ready to be filed simultaneously), such that the institution can issue its acceptance documentation within the required window?
• Security arrangements in place. Has the applicant identified the form and likely quantum of security the court will require, and are the financial arrangements in place to provide it on short notice?
• Translation and authentication ready. Has all relevant documentation – arbitration agreement, supporting evidence, institutional letter – been translated and authenticated to the Mainland court standard?
• Coordination protocol established. Are the Hong Kong arbitration team and the Mainland-side counsel (locally licensed) operating from the same factual record and timeline, with agreed communication channels?
• Hong Kong parallel relief considered. Has the team assessed whether a concurrent application under the Arbitration Ordinance (Cap. 609) or the HKIAC emergency-arbitrator procedure adds value, and whether the two applications are consistent in their characterisation of the facts and relief sought?

If any item on this checklist cannot be confirmed before filing, the team should pause and address the gap. An application filed with an unresolved item is more likely to be refused or delayed than one filed once every gate is clear.

If an earlier filing or enforcement attempt produced an adverse or stalled result, a second read can identify the strategic error and the routes still open. Write to us at info@lockhartyip.com to discuss the position.

What happens after the preservation order – and how does it connect to the final award?

A preservation order is a bridge. It holds the asset position during the arbitration but it does not, by itself, transfer value to the claimant. The award does that – and only once the award is enforced against the preserved assets.

The enforcement route for a Hong Kong-seated HKIAC award on the Mainland runs under the 1999 Arrangement on Mutual Enforcement of Arbitral Awards between the Mainland and Hong Kong and its 2020 Supplemental Arrangement. That regime is separate from the Interim Measures Arrangement. A claimant that has successfully obtained a preservation order must therefore move promptly from the award to the enforcement application. Delay between the award and the enforcement filing can create procedural complications, particularly if the preservation order has a defined duration or is subject to a respondent's application to have it lifted.

The 2020 Supplemental Arrangement introduced the possibility of simultaneous enforcement applications in both jurisdictions for the same award – a significant practical tool where the respondent holds assets both on the Mainland and in Hong Kong. Planning for this simultaneity should begin before the award is issued, not after.

The full chain therefore runs: qualifying clause – institutional filing – institutional acceptance letter – Mainland court preservation application – security – preservation order – arbitration on the merits – award – enforcement application under the mutual enforcement regime – recovery. Each link must hold. A break at any point – a deficient clause, a missed security deadline, an award not followed up promptly – can sever the chain at significant cost.

Our arbitration desk manages this full chain on cross-border Mainland-Hong Kong disputes. Where the matter also raises questions about the holding structure above the Mainland entity, or about the interaction between the arbitration and any Mainland regulatory or corporate approvals required to move assets, we work with colleagues across our corporate and disputes and arbitration practice to address the full picture.

A note on the reader's position and what to do next

This guide has set out the mechanism, the sequence and the principal risk points. What it cannot do is substitute for advice on a specific set of facts. The Interim Measures Arrangement is a precise instrument: small deviations in the sequence, the documentation or the court selection can defeat an application that is otherwise well-founded on the merits.

The question worth asking before any filing is whether the team managing the arbitration also has the practical reach to manage the Mainland court side concurrently – not as a follow-on step, but as a parallel track from day one. The cases that succeed under the Arrangement are almost invariably those where both tracks were planned together.

Related practices

• Disputes & Arbitration – Hong Kong-seated arbitration, enforcement and cross-border interim relief
• Holding Structures – structuring above Mainland operating entities to protect and position assets

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