Recently, the Office of the Work Safety Commission of the State Council has distributed the Circular on Practically Implementing Work Safety Responsibilities to Resolutely Guard and Fight Against Major and Significant Coal Mine Accidents (the "Circular").
The Circular proposes eleven concrete requirements from three perspectives, including "practically implementing responsibilities of coal mine enterprises for work safety as subjects". Further, the Circular expressly states that all coal mine enterprises should improve and strictly put into practice different work safety management rules, and fully implement the work safety responsibility system for heads at different levels, all departments and related positions; if any coal mines or mining and tunneling faces are found to have failed to put in place its work safety management rules, running deficient major work safety systems, taking ineffective measures to respond to major disasters, and having major safety risks unsolved, the production should be suspended immediately without exception; resource consolidation, mergers and restructuring, and coal mines in trust should be subject to unified administration, not allowing any illegal contracting-out or sub-contracting. Furthermore, the Circular states that enterprises should be administered under the blacklist and subject to joint disciplinary actions, if their serious illegalities or violations give rise to accidents, and their executives held responsible should be banned from entering relevant industries or holding certain posts and be publicly reported.