Shareholders' Information Rights

The shareholders'information rights are the foundation of the other rights of shareholders. The rights'character includes the character of right of common and individual. In China, legislation in the new make great progresses than the old one that the new one extends the shareholders'information rights to the field that the shareholders can inspect the books and records. Constructing the system of the shareholders'information rights is so necessary to perfect the system of company operation and can prevent civil rights'abuse, harmonize the conflict of the shareholders'advantages, furthermore, it can protects the reformation and establishes the healthy modern corporation system.About content of the shareholders'information rights, all kinds of theories exist in research, and different legislations in each nation. The inspection rights of accounts, inspection rights of books and records by shareholders in limited companies, inspection rights of important information, legal disclosed system and inquiry rights by shareholders in joint-stock company exist in our country's legal system. It's a pity that our country's legislation isn't includes the right of inspection of original warrants. Having no this right, not grasping the financial affairs of the company clearly, not exercising the rights of shareholders'information completely. Accordingly, the right of original warrants inspection and the right of imperative investigation should be prescribed in legislation.Any right exertion has its boundary. In order to avoid the rights'abuse, it's necessary to set definite produces such as limiting the shareholder's qualification and purpose to protect the company and the common shareholders'advantages. On qualification of shareholders, it needs to distinguish the limited companies and joint-stock companies. The other difficult problem is that whether the exited shareholders and the new shareholder should own the right of information. Finally, any realization of rights should lean upon reasonable procedure. It has important significance that setting up limited procedure to balance the conflict of shareholders and companies, negotiate the corporation's operational machine.There are some cases on rights of shareholders'information. Therefore, faultiness of legislation in a long past period, many judgments are different as the cases had similar experiences. Practices of this kind of cases have to rely on individual judge's legal attainment, but there are short of common rules. The author discuss with legal research, nation's legislation and practical experiences from the following aspects such as the procedure before suit, the statuses of parties, distribution of onus probandi, responsibility principle, limitation of action, compulsory measures, execution procedure and relation of the suit of the right of shareholders'information and the suit of claim for compensation of shareholders. These aspects not only include the theory foundation of the shareholders'information rights, but also infer the conclusions analyzed in practice. In the end, it can accelerate the development of legislation and practice.