Walter Hutchens’ Blog

Here is an extensive website covering the 2004 Chinese Securities Market Legal Forum. People’s University and the Yinhe Securities Company organized the forum.

The Forum was titled something like “Development & Regularization: Remaking the Securities Market’s Legal System & Interpreting the State Council’s Nine Articles.”

Some of the major speeches at the Forum have generated press coverage in the PRC. Here is a report on the speech of Jiang Bixu, a vice president of the Supreme People’s Court. He said that the current PRC Securities Law fails to adequately stress civil liability which is an important reason China’s securities markets lack regularization (bu guifan). I certainly agree with that.

However, the report says Jiang also made some comment about how the interests of individual shareholders must be considered in light of the interest of the majority of shareholders and that “in developed market economy nations such as the United states there are many limitations on individual shareholders bringing litigation because it affects the interests of other shareholders.”

Indeed there are many limits on an individual (or even group) initiating shareholder derivative litigation, but if Jiang instead meant that the interests of the majority of shareholders must be balanced against the interests of individual shareholders who bring private securities litigation, that would seem to run counter to his point that civil liability should be relied on as a restraining mechanism in markets.

NPC Standing Committee member Cheng Siwei also spoke at the forum. His remarks are covered here.

Additional discussion of amendment of the PRC Securities Law is here.