Article 33 in Chinese Corporation law keeps silent on whether shareholders are entitled to copy accounting records, which results in different judgments when different courts of justice deal with this issue. However, most of courts deny shareholders claim to copy accounting records, because they think the law doesn’t expressly authorize shareholders to do so and accounting records are trade secrets. This thesis draws such conclusions as below after comparative study on the relevant legal rules in the U.K., the U.S., Germany, japan and the Republic of Korea. Firstly, in the U.K., the U.S. and Germany, shareholders’ rights to know are not limited to written law. Secondly, those five countries list corporations’ financial information as important information to be released and design systems aimed at balancing shareholders’ rights to know and corporations’ interests. Thirdly, the right to inspect corporations’ financial conditions is bundled with the right to copy accounting records. This thesis questions Chinese courts’ decisions related to shareholders’ right to copy accounting records. The thesis have four reasons to support this opinion shareholders’ right to copy accounting record should be protected. Firstly, courts’ decisions are not consistent with “permissible unless forbidden” principle, which is the foundation of private law. The courts’ interpretation of law is too rigid to be reasonable. Secondly, accounting records cannot be regards as trade secrets from a legal perspective. Accounting records are corporations’ privacy to the public, but they should be fully known by the corporation’s shareholders, who are owners of the corporation. Thirdly, there exist logic mistakes in courts’ decisions and courts’ decisions to refuse shareholders’ right to copy accounting records cannot prevent financial information from being leaked. Lastly, the purpose of Article 33 is to counter major shareholders’ monopoly over information and protect the minor shareholders’ right to know. This purpose reflects the spirit of the Corporation Law. Courts decisions are contrary to the spirit. Finally, this thesis puts forward three suggestions for improvement of systems, which might better protect shareholders’ right to know. The first suggestion is that China should modify the Corporation Law or publish Judicial Interpretation to expressly authorize shareholders to copy accounting records. The second is to permit shareholders whose shares reach a certain proportion from joint stock companies to copy accounting records. The third is to ensure shareholders must perform an obligation to take good care of copied accounting records or other document.
the right to copy accounting recordsshareholders’ right to knowtrade secretspermissible unless forbiddeninterpretation of law. Secondlyaccount records账簿复制权 股东知情权 商业秘密 法未禁止皆可为 法律解释
전북대학교 동북아법연구소 [Institute for North-East Asian Law]
설립연도
2007
분야
사회과학>법학
소개
전북대학교 동북아법연구소는 동북아법에 관한 국내외의 이론과 실제를 연구하고 교육하며, 그 결과를 발표하여 동북아법에 대한 이해의 증진과 동북아의 법률문화발전에 기여하기 위한 목적으로 2006년 7월 설립되었다.
서해안시대의 중심지역을 표방한 전라북도의 지리적 여건과 동북아시아의 여러 국가와의 인적 물적 교류가 확대되면서 그에 따른 여러 가지 법률문제가 발생됨에 따라 동북아시아의 지역적 특성을 고려한 법제도의 연구와 이들 국가와 거래하는 전북지역 자치단체와 기업에 대한 실질적 교육의 필요성이 대두되었다.
이러한 요청에 따라 법제도의 연구와 교육을 담당할 기관으로 전북지역 거점국립대학인 전북대학교가 동북아법연구소를 설립하게 되었고 전북 지방자치단체와 기업에 대한 교육과 자문프로그램을 운영하고 있다.