On The Information Disclosure Duty Of Charity Organizations

Charity organization in China is facing a serious crisis of confidence, and it is urgent to breakthrough the development dilemma by establishing effective information disclosure system to raise the transparency of charitable organizations. The information disclosure obligation of charitable organizations is a legal one, and information asymmetry, credibility theory as well as the right to know together constitute the justness foundation of information disclosure system. Its information includes organization information and operational information. The disclosed information should be authentic, accurate, and adequate; the way to disclose should be available, standard, timely and easy to understand. However, the present charitable legestilation about information disclosure in China is lack of operability and flexibility, and our future charitable legislation should specify categories of disclosure information. Different provisions should be made in accordance with different scales of charitable organizations. In terms of ways to disclose information, interim reports, interim report system and directional disclosure system, etc., should be established in future. New media should be made full use of to disclose information, and the availability of disclosed information should be improved effectively.If charitable organizations violate information disclosure obligation, regulators reserves the right to impose fines, give warnings, inform criticism, order to stop activities, repeal registration, and cancel duty-free qualifications,etc; for directors and senior management personnel responsible for information disclosure of charitable organizations, the regulators have the authority to have an interview, order them to correct, make regulatory conversations, issue warning letters, write down their malfeasance in the personal credit files and make public, prohibit them to hold positions of managers in charitable organizations in a certain period, or ban them for life from the charity. In terms of civil responsibility, legal liability should be taken. If charitable organizations violate information disclosure obligation and cause losses, the public, on behalf of charity organizations, have right to require the directors, the senior managers and the certified public accountants issuing accounting reports, who are at fault, to take corresponding civil liability.