Research Of Shareholder's Information Right

The modern corporate governance structure takes separation of ownership and management as its mainly governance principles by setting up general meeting of sharesholders, board of directors and board of supervisors. Each department takes their own responsibilities and plays different role for operation of the company. It is no doubt that the princple is advantageous for operation management and development of a company to some extent. But for majority shareholders, they acctually not be involved in management of company limited by currunt operation situations, instead, board of directors and related managers make dicision of company,s daily business and operations. As result of that and asymmetric access to information, it is possible for board of directors and related managers who take dominant position to erode and damage interests of shareholders. As well known, any kind of right of any citizen can not be denied without due legal process and legal means in China. Shareholders'right to know the truth as one of legal right in Company Law, is also true. Obviously, shareholders'right to know the truth as one effective means of supervising operations and management of a company is backed up by its theoretical and practical basis. Majority of countries in the world have legislation concerning corporate governance structure and shareholder's information right, although differrent in mode, there are a lot of advantages we have to study from and reference based on the problem defect of Chinese legislation, transplant the advanced to perfect our related legislation about shareholder's information right.This paper is divided into three parts:The first part is an overview of shareholder's information right.Starting from the conception of shareholder's information,its charateristic is outlined firstly and second explain the theoretical basis and practical significance, and show that shareholder's information right is rational legislation for corporate management. Then introduces related legislation of some countries and regions ,such as the United States,Britain,Japan,Germany and Taiwan of China. Througth the study of advanced legislative style and experience from these countries and regions,we can get useful insights to improve our legislation on shareholder's information right.The second part elaborates contents of shareholder's right to know. Analyzed from types of right,shareholder's right to know includes the right of access, right of reproduction, right of question and otehrs, which were provided in the Company Law revised in 2005 . Then from the exercise of shareholder's right to know that was explained, a well-designed legal system can be achieved only applied to practice to reach to good intentions of legislators and the purpose of this legislation fundamentally. At this stage, the way to achieve shareholder's right to know includes:provide duty of companies in information disclosure and corresponding right of shareholders, the assist to from company's directors and managers, as avenues of judicial relief. As shareholders in the inferior position of information asymmetry, it is important and necessary how to exercise the right to information to some extent and achieve protection of shareholder's right to know. Finally describes and analyzes on the restriction of the exercise of shareholder's right to know from qualified shareholders, subjective purpose, objective condition, timeliness of exercise and ect.The third part is suggestions for improvement based on deficiencies of shareholder's right to know. Firstly, it introduces our legislation on the shareholder's right to know and points improvements that the new Company Law shows compared with the older one issued in 1993. The old "Company Law" has provisions of the shareholder's right to information but loose in logical system and slightly immature in content. The newly revised "Law" not only expanded the scope of the shareholder's right to exercise the right to know, but also noted the procedure of protection of shareholder's right to know, which is greater progress from the older law 1995. Secondly, emphasis the deficiencies of legislation on shareholder's right to know. As everyone knows, the lag inherent characteristics of the law determines the existence of deficiencies need to improve, as also provision on shareholder's right to know. The deficiencies mainly shows as the exercising scope, methods of restrictions and operation aspects. Finally, constructive suggestions were put forward, including the expansion of the scope of the exercise of right to the truth, and gradually regulate restrictions of exercise of shareholder's right to know and improving shareholder remedies by litigation and non-litigation procedure.In this paper, it introduces knowledge about shareholder's right to know based on relevant legislation, focusing on the legislative provisions deficiencies and shortcomings, to elucidate and discuss and put forward reasonable suggestions. Article on the overall structure of the progressive score by layers of pattern, hopes to lead the reader to read this article on shareholder's right to know and concern the legal system related and make a greater contribution.