China's Supreme People's Court has made it clear for the first time that arrested vessels on bareboat chartering can be auctioned at the request of creditors.

The new ruling came as the latest sign that China's maritime courts are tapping into international conventions in their trials.

Before this, Chinese courts held different views regarding the auction of arrested bareboat charter vessels, Supreme People's Court judge Luo Dongchuan said in a statement published by the court.

China's maritime law stipulated that creditors could apply for the arrest of bareboat charter vessels during credit disputes, but the issue of auctioning such vessels had never been clarified.

To end the ambiguity, the court has decided to use the experiences of the 1952 International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to the Arrest Of Sea-Going Ships and the 1999 International Convention on the Arrest of Ships. The court also referred to the maritime laws of major international shipping powers, Luo said.

As well, the court confirmed that ship arrest and auction cases should be handled exclusively by the maritime courts in the country's coastal provinces, where the vessels at issue were located or registered.

From 1984 to 2013, China's maritime courts arrested 7,744 vessels, including 1,160 flying foreign flags, show government statistics. These courts also auctioned 623 vessels during the same period, with 123 of them foreign-flagged.

As China is growing as a major trading area for vessels, ship arrests and auctions are projected to increase significantly under its jurisdiction.

The court also introduced rules to speed up the auction process. For instance, the announcement for a second auction should be published seven days before the auction. Previously, the timeframe was at least 30 days before. If there are still no bidders in the second auction of arrested vessels, creditors can choose to sell vessels without knocked-down prices.