The Shanghai Higher People's Court has recruited 33 banks to help it check the financial records of defendants who refuse to pay court-ordered compensation, the court announced Tuesday.

The deal with the banks gives the court a new enforcement tool in its long-running battle against defendants who are willing to lie about their personal finances to avoid paying compensation and other costs after they lose lawsuits.

"There are people who refuse to abide by the court's decisions after they lose a lawsuit," said an officer from the decision implementation department of the Shanghai Higher People's Court. "They lie about their finances, claiming that they are too poor to pay to the other party. There are others who do not accept the decision and are unwilling to appeal the case."

The court signed a contract with the local banks early last month to help it create a computer system that allows court officers to check how many bank accounts a person has and how much money he has in each account, according to a press release from the court.

"If we find a person who is actually able to pay to the winning party, we can freeze his bank account and even deduct money from his account," the officer said.

The system contains information from 80 percent of city's banks, including the major State-owned banks, though it does not include information from branches outside the city, the officer said. The remaining banks are all smaller commercial banks.

The court began working with the banks in September 2010 under a pilot program.

Prior to that, the court didn't have many tools to enforce court orders, the officer said. If it wanted to check a defendant's financial records, a court officer would have to drive to each bank personally to request the information.

Furthermore, the court tended to give people little more than a slap on the wrist when they defy court orders, said Gao Ming, a lawyer from the Shanghai Wanfang Law Firm. "Punishment for people who disobey court orders is far from severe," Gao said. "Although Chinese Law states that a person can face up to two years in jail for disobeying a court order, the most serious punishment that I've ever seen is 15 days of detention."