| Investor protection has always been one of the top priorities of China's capital market supervision and financial market construction.As an important investor protection mechanism,litigation mechanism has gradually received the attention of regulators in China.Yang Hua,who was the director of the listing department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission in 2010,pointed out that “one of the priorities of future corporate governance development is to improve the civil litigation system,promote the improvement of the relevant mechanisms of civil litigation,and consider expanding the scope of civil litigation”;In the year of 2018,General Secretary Xi Jinping further emphasized the need to comprehensively promote the modernization of litigation service centers,accelerate the reform of cross-regional face litigation services,and improve the diversified dispute resolution mechanism.With the development of economy and society,the behavior of resolving disputes through legal channels has gradually increased.The number and amount of litigation cases involving listed companies in the Chinnese capital market have been increasing.Legal proceedings have gradually become an important factor affecting the development of companines and capital market.Debt financing is one of the indispensable important financing methods for listed companies.The asset-liability ratio of listed companies in China is not low.The State Council's Opinions on Further Promoting the Healthy Development of Capital Markets also pointed out that it is necessary to expand direct financing and improve the hierarchical capital market system and actively expand the bond market,showing that the interests of creditors play an important role in the company's value.Creditors are very important stakeholders of enterprises,and investor protection,especially the protection of creditors' interests,has always been a research hotspot.In China,at the legislative level,the "Company Law" which is related to the protection of creditors' interests and the "Contract Law","Guarantee Law","Property Law" and "Bankruptcy Law" which adjust the relationship between creditors' rights and debtors' still have great deficiencies and it is impossible to fundamentally protect the interests of creditors;corporate governance mechanisms in China are flawed both theoretically and practically,and the protection of creditors' interests is not in place;lack of theoretical cognition and lack of support of basic systems such as law,creditors' weak position makes creditors are unable to play their role in governance.Creditors have always been in dire straits in corporate governance.Eventually,insiders will use their information superiority tunnel listed companies or transfer risks to creditors through coverting related party transactions and excessive over-investment.In order to protect the creditor's interests,the creditors themselves will actively seek the litigation mechanism to intervene in the company's decisions which lead to the widespread existence of creditors' litigation in China's capital market.There are many forms of civil litigation in the capital market,including investor group litigation,shareholder representative litigation,creditor litigation,and government litigation.In mature market countries such as the United States,Canada and Europe,the relevant legal mechanisms for protecting creditors such as the bankruptcy system are very mature,and the debt contract governance effect is significant,so creditor litigations is not common in these countries.At present,the research on litigation in foreign countries is mainly based on shareholder litigation.Different from western practice,so far,China's securities law has not really established a group litigation system,and there are few shareholder litigations.The relatively more common creditor litigations have become a relatively unique phenomenon in China's capital market.The domestic research on creditor litigation is still in its infancy,and the current results are few and no systematic research has been formed.Therefore,the study of the effect of creditor litigation has certain practical significance and academic value in China.Creditor litigation is an external governance mechanism that is different from other corporate governance(such as internal corporate governance)mechanism.It not only makes creditors play a governance role,but also has the influence of litigation mechanism.Then in the context of China's system,what is the role of creditor litigations in the external governance of enterprises? Will it exert a binding effect on the abnormal operating activities and abnormal investment activities which the company infringes on the interests of creditors,thus protecting the fundamental interests of creditors? Will it affect the company's choices of accounting policy,thus helping creditors to obtain more robust information to make further decisions? The test of the above problems may help us to understand the effectiveness of China's litigation mechanism for creditor protection,and help us to explore new paths for creditor governance.It also helps to further resolve the the effectiveness of judicial independence reform and offer certain empirical data to developers and regulators,which will make certain contributions to the legalization and improvement of China.This paper is based on hand-collected data on creditor litigation of listed companies from 2003 to 2017,and the main research contents and research findings of this paper mainly include the following aspects.Firstly,the influence of creditor litigation on abnormal related party transactions,the results show that creditor litigation plays an important role in restraining the abnormal related party transactions and the judicial local protectionism and the nature of the property rights of the respondent enterprises will have a moderate effect on the impact of creditor litigation on the abnormal related party transactions.Secondly,the influence of creditor litigation on over-investment,the results show that creditor litigation plays an important role in restraining the over-investment and the judicial local protectionism and the nature of the property rights of the respondent enterprises will have a moderate effect on the impact of creditor litigation on the over-investment.Thirdly,the influence of creditor litigation on accounting conservatism,the results show that creditor litigation will further improve the accounting conservatism of the respondent and the judicial local protectionism and the nature of the property rights of the respondent enterprises will have a moderate effect on the impact of creditor litigation on the accounting conservatism.This paper focuses on the phenomenon of creditor litigation,combined with China's special institutional background,and explores the external governance effect of creditor litigation in China.The possible contributions of this paper are as follows,firstly,the paper systematically analyzes the creditor litigation phenomenon and its governance effects under the special system background in China,secondly,it provides a new perspective for creditor governance research;thirdly,it further enriches the litigation field research from the litigation category;finally,this paper combines the research of the company's finance,corporate governance and law in a number of different fields,which helps to promote the integration of disciplines,especially the research on law and finance,law and accounting.Finally,the following policy recommendations are proposed: firstly,actively improve the civil litigation mechanism and protect the creditor's interest in litigation;secondly,actively promote the reform of judicial independence and improve the local protectionism of the judiciary;thirdly,improve the environment of debt contracts governance in China;finally,establish a creditor governance mechanism applicable to China. |
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