On The Legal Liability Of Accounting Information Distortion

Reality is the fundamental requirement for accounting information quality. However, the misrepresentation of accounting information has become astonished. In the economic life of contemporary China, false accounting information appears quite universal. Consequently, it not only undermines the development of Chinese securities market, but also frustrates the investor's confidence seriously. Furthermore, it may increase the mistakes of macro-policy-making and influence the macro-management of our government.There are various reasons for the above consequence. These reasons include both the exterior and the interior factors of accounting fields. In order to regulate the unbalanced accounting legal liability effectively, we should build the system of accounting legal liability which dominated by civil liability, and supplemented by criminal liability and administrative liability.This article consists of four parts. The First part functions as a generalization, which introduces the definition and judging standards of accounting information misrepresentation, and analyzes its types and features, then indicates the harms brought about by it. On this basis, the author puts forward the constitutions of accounting information. The Second part analyzes the legal reasons for accounting information misrepresentation, and points out that the most important one exists in the unbalancing system of accounting legal liability. In the third part, through the comparison about Chinese-American legal liability system guarding against accounting information misrepresentation, the author finds out that Chinese accounting legal system is imperfect and out of date evidently. At the same time, it lacks suitable litigating system and enough penalties. The Fourth part is the key part of the article. It proposes some suggestions to perfect Chinese legal liability system of accounting information misrepresentation, and calls for building the system of accounting legal liability which dominated by civil liability, and supplemented by criminal liability and administrative liability .First of all, it suggests reinforce the civil liability of accounting information misrepresentation. To the enterprise violating contract, the compensation scope of the civil liability of accounting information misrepresentation contains the other partner's expenditure for signing or variation the contract, and losses produced by the other partner believing the validity of contract with the third partner. As the enterprise of liability of tort, the compensation scope of accounting information misrepresentation includes the victim's losses for fulfilling the contract, and the above-mentioned produced profit losses. Then, it suggests regulate the criminal liability of accounting information misrepresentation, extend properly scope of criminal liability and revise the constitution by adding "Crimes of Disrupting the Order of the Socialist Market Economy" to "Crimes of Accounting Information Misrepresentation". In addition, we need to optimize the administrative liability of accounting information misrepresentation, by building a united and authoritative organization of accounting supervision, arranging the high-qualified supervisors, setting down the accounting law of balancing benefits, constructing objective and independent law environment and establishing a standard and ordered balancing system.