Dentons Secures Win for a Foreign Defendant on the First Criminal Case Ever Tried in a Maritime Court

On September 1, the judgment of the Ningbo Maritime Court regarding a maritime criminal case entered into force. Dentons lawyers' successful defense of the foreign defendant was widely praised.
This case is the first criminal case ever tried in a maritime court in China.
Early in the morning of May 7, 2016, when the Malta bulk carrier CATALINA was on her trip from Lianyungang of Jiangsu Province to Indonesia, the second mate of the ship (the defendant) was behind the steering wheel. When CATALINA was sailing near the coastal waters of Xiangshan of Zhejiang Province at 72 nautical mile east by north of Nanjiushan Island, it collided with the Shangdong Shidao fishing vessel Lu Rong Yu 58398 in fog, resulting in 14 deaths, five others missing, and sinking of the Chinese fishing boat. Determined by Ningbo Maritime Safety Administration of the PRC, CATALINA shall bear main responsibility, and the Shandong vessel shall bear the secondary responsibility.
On September 23, 2016, the second mate of CATALINA was detained by the No.2 Frontier Maritime Police Force of Zhejiang Province.
The client was advised by a Dentons Ningbo-based team, consisting of Partner Zhao Hongjun, and Associates Xu Xue and Chen Xingyu. From the investigation of the case to the prosecution and trial, the team visited the client in the Beilun detention house for 10 times, requesting detailed information about the incident and explaining China's current laws and regulations with great patience. The team also proactively approached the lawyers who represented the victims' close relatives to discuss the damages, so that the relatives' economic losses could be quickly recovered, and they successfully obtained written understanding from some of the relatives.
Authorized by a court order for designation of jurisdiction of Zhejiang High People’s Court, Ningbo Maritime Court accepted this case. On July 6, 2017, the court held the public first trial. The client's defense attorneys were Mr. Zhao and Ms. Xu. The presiding judge was the President of the Ningbo Maritime Court, and the Director of the No.1 Department of Public Prosecution of the Ningbo People's Procuratorate attended the trial. The Supreme People's Court and the Zhejiang High People’s Court both sent officers to observe the proceedings.
According to the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China and the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court of Several Issues on the Specific Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases about Traffic Accidents, the sentencing of the crime of causing traffic accident falls into three types. Regarding this case, the defendant was involved in "causing more than two deaths or five being seriously injured, and bearing all or main responsibility for the accident", thus the defendant shall be treated as "involved in other especially flagrant circumstances", and be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years. Our team argued that since the defendant voluntarily surrendered himself, actively compensated the economic losses of the victims' relatives, obtained understanding from some of the relatives and repented for causing this incident, his sentence should be shortened. Our opinions were fully adopted by the court. The client was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.
 During our follow-up meeting with the client after the sentencing, the client stated that the court's decision was fair and he had no intention to appeal his case, and repeated thanked our lawyers for their quality and efficient legal services and efforts.