China, the backbone of the global maritime trade, is stepping up  its efforts with respect to regulating legal aspects of ship arrest in the country.

On Feb. 28, 2015, the Supreme People's Court of the country published the Regulations on Certain Issues Concerning the Application of Law Relating to Arrest and Auction of Ships which took effect on March 1, 2015.

The regulations are aimed at extending the scope of the ships that can be subject to legal auction/sale after arrest, clarifying and simplifying the ship arrest and auction/sale procedures, and increasing the judicial efficiency of the legal sale/auction, as informed by Clyde and Co law firm.

Although China is still not regarded as a haven for ship arrest, the number of ship arrest applications has increased continually, the law firm said.

With the new regulations in force, more frequent vessel arrests in China are likely to take place.