Research On The Legal Regulation Of Equity Crowdfunding In China

Equity-based crowdfunding is an emerging equity financing mode realized on Internet crowdfunding platforms.Based on Internet,it takes the equity as returns on investment,which is advantageous in breaking geographical restrictions,simplifying financing procedures and reducing time cost,and thus playing an important role in solving financing difficulties for middle and small-sized enterprises.Equity-based crowdfunding has a late start in China.As a result,no special legal norms have been developed to regulate it.Under the existing legal framework,the participants of equity-based crowdfunding are confronted with a variety of legal risks and the orderly development of the industry cannot be effectively protected by the legal system.Therefore,in this study,advanced legislative experience of the United States,the United Kingdom and Italy was drawn to analyze the legal risks confronted by the participants of equity-based crowdfunding and the current legislative status of China equity-based crowdfunding,based on which the legal system of China equity-based crowdfunding was established and perfected.Specifically,this paper is divided into the following four parts.Part 1:The concept of equity-based crowdfunding was introduced and problems like its characteristics and legal relationship as well as its differences from Internet non-public equity financing were analyzed.Part 2:The legislative contents concerning equity-based crowdfunding in the United States,the United Kingdom and Italy were concluded and related advanced experience was summed up for reference.Part 3:The legal risks confronted by current participants of equity-based crowdfunding and the legislative status of China equity-based crowdfunding were analyzed.Through analyzing the legislative contents,corresponding problems were pointed out,such as the lower legislative level of regulatory documents,the lack of systematic management of equity-based crowdfunding platforms,and the too high threshold for investors.Part 4:Suggestions for the legal regulation of China equity-based crowdfunding were proposed based on practical situation and the foreign advanced experience,such as establishing public offering of small loan exemption system,perfecting the protection mechanism for investors,and strengthening obligations for information disclosure.