Research On Shareholders' Inspection Rights

In company's administrative structure, shareholders are not only the investors of the company, but also the finally owners of the company's benefit. However, the administrative structure of modern company based on the principle that is "the property is separated with the management", which leading to most of the shareholders are far away from company's management and operation, and they are in a weak position with asymmetric information. In order to overcome this situation, the company legislation of many countries all endows the shareholders with right to know. Only the shareholders learn about the company's situation, can they exercise their rights well. Inspection right of books and records by shareholders is the most important way for shareholders to realize the right. Strengthening its protection is one of the objectives of the modern world company law system. The rights include the right of access to the financial accounting report, the right of access to books, the right of access to original document and the right of access to other important documents. However, any right must have a boundary. It is necessary to set some restrictions on exercising conditions in order to prevent shareholders from abusing the right, and balance the benefit between shareholders' and company's. Company law in china is at a primary stage. Although improvements on inspection right of books and records by shareholders have been made, the relevant provisions still seem too simple and insufficient to carry out. New "Company Law" clearly provides for the shareholders the right of access to important documents and information, but the new "Company Law", after all, is an entitative law. How to protect the entitative right of party is blank. Different courts all over our country have different verdicts in adjudicating shareholders' inspection right disputes. In this paper, the writer discussed the shareholders' inspection right from the view of the company law theory and practice and used legislative experience from abroad for reference, and made a number of suggestions to improve access to the right system. I hope this paper can be helpful to our country's shareholders' inspection right system.