A Research On Civil Liability Of Securities Intermediate Agency's Misstatements

The reports made by securities intermediate agencies have great influences on the securities investors' decisions. In recent years, many securities intermediate agencies misstate in the special reports just in pursuit of their own interest which violate full, true, and exact duty, aggrieve the rights and interests of investors, block the development of securities market. At the same time, being the continuously increasing misstatement cases, investors become the most pitiful victims. Though the misfeasor will be punished by the government, it is difficult for the investors to get legal assistance. Analyzing the actual situation of Chinese securities market, this article mainly concentrates on the civil liability of misstatement made by securities intermediate agencies in the securities market. With reference to other countries existing laws and regulations and experiences and based on author's thoughts of the judicial acts in our country, the author manages to set up a pretty comprehensive legal framework of the civil liability of misstatements made by securities intermediate agencies in the securities market. Firstly, the author simply introduces the definition of securities intermediate agency, the concept and the development course of misstatement made by securities intermediate agencies. In this part the imperfectness of the civil liabilities in the Chinese Securities law is also discussed. Secondly, the academic foundation about the civil liabilities of securities intermediate agencies is analyzed. Based on the economics principle and expert liability theory, the author researches the civil liabilities system of information disclosure, discusses the nature of civil liabilities of securities intermediate agencies, thereafter get the decision that civil liabilities of securities intermediate agencies is better to be treated as a kind of tort liabilities. Tort liabilities theory should be adopted to better the civil liabilities system of securities intermediate agencies in our country. Thirdly, the constitution of the civil liabilities of securities intermediate agencies is discussed. The constitutive requirements of civil liabilities of securities intermediate agencies include the tortious activities, subjective fault, losses, the causality between misstatements and losses. As far as subjective fault is concerned, securities intermediate agencies and experts are applicable to the principle of people responsible for their own errors, but their burden of proof should be in an inverted way, they have to infer the proof for themselves if they want to avoid the civil liabilities. Finally, the author discusses procedural mechanism of civil liabilities of securities intermediate agencies. In this part the conditions of accept a case, the limitation of civil action, and the form of civil action are discussed. According to the securities laws and regulations in our state, based on author's thoughts of the several rules of the Supreme People's Court, the author manages to make some advices for the civil liabilities of misstatement made by securities intermediate agencies.