China's Restriction & Regulation On Submitting Local Data To Foreign Courts & Government Under Cross-Border EDiscovery Requests

Jet Deng, Ken Dai¹

In recent years, with the increase of cross-border eDiscovery practices in government investigations and litigation by jurisdictions, such as the EU and the U.S., it has become quite common for enterprises in China to be directly and compulsorily required by foreign law enforcement and judicial authorities to provide local data abroad.

To counteract such "long-arm jurisdiction" and safeguard data sovereignty, China has issued "blocking statutes", such as Data Security Law ("DSL"), which requires enterprises to obtain approval from competent authorities of China before providing such data, while failure to comply may result in legal responsibilities, such as fines, both for the responsible companies and individuals.