Research On The Attributes Of Employee Equity Incentive Disputes In Listed Companie

With the rapid development of technology and the intensification of competition for talents,more and more listed companies have begun to gradually pay attention to the role of employee equity incentives,using equity incentive plans to tie the interests of employees and the company together in order to better attract and retain talents.The emergence of new incentive means is also accompanied by disputes,and the number of equity incentive disputes between companies and employees is increasing year by year.However,because the current legal regulation of equity incentive disputes in China is not yet clear,it is difficult to determine the legal attributes of equity incentive disputes,which also brings a lot of troubles to the court and the parties in the judicial adjudication.And the legal nature of the equity incentive dispute affects the choice of litigation procedure.The core issue of this paper is to determine the legal attributes of the equity incentive disputes of listed company employees,that is,whether it belongs to labor disputes or general civil and commercial disputes.The first chapter of this paper starts from the two main modes of equity incentive of listed companies in China,first briefly introduces the concepts and characteristics of the two incentive modes,and explores that equity incentive is a kind of expectation right in the granting stage and formation right in the forming stage,which can be obtained in the end.Then the current legislative status and judicial status of the equity incentive are introduced.Because of the conflict of laws and regulations,the courts often have different judgments in the same case.The article then introduces the two doctrines of equity incentive disputes: labor disputes and civil and commercial disputes.This leads to the main problem of this article: the legal attributes of employee equity incentive disputes are controversial.Through the summary of the aforementioned cases and the generalization of the academic controversy,it is found that the reasons for the equity incentive dispute as a labor dispute mainly lie in: one is that the equity incentive contract is based on the labor relationship and belongs to the labor contract;the other is that the equity incentive belongs to the labor compensation.The second chapter of this paper analyzes the reasons for the controversy of the attributes of employee equity incentive disputes.This paper believes that the primary reason for the controversy of the legal attributes of the equity incentive dispute is that the civil claim appears in the labor dispute litigation process between the workers and the employer,which gives rise to the argument of whether it can be heard together in the labor dispute.And because both parties often have disputes after the labor relationship is dissolved,and the employee’s claim involves the equity itself and the related income,so their equity incentive claims are often intertwined with other labor claims,and the grantor of the equity incentive is sometimes not the employer,which leads to the intricate and complicated equity incentive disputes.The reason for this is that the legal relationships in employee equity incentives are intertwined.Equity incentive is predicated on the labor relationship between employees and the company,but after the employees pay the consideration for investment and register as shareholders,the investment relationship and shareholder relationship are established,in which the legal relationships are complex and intertwined.The senior management,as the main subject of equity incentives in listed companies,often takes the place of the company in the employment management of ordinary workers,and it is controversial whether they should be protected by the favorable labor law.Based on the two main reasons for including equity incentive disputes into labor disputes,the third chapter of this paper explores the attributes of equity incentive disputes from two aspects: equity incentive itself and the nature of equity incentive contract.First of all,companies set up equity incentives for the purpose of attracting talents and saving costs,which is ultimately for the benefit of the company and shareholders.For the employees,the equity incentive is a kind of capital gain based on the investment behavior,which is the consideration other than labor obligation and is to meet the company’s requirement of loyalty and diligence to the employees.In addition,the equity incentive does not have the legal form of salary,nor does it have the certainty of salary,and it is beyond the function of labor compensation to guarantee the basic life,so it does not belong to the labor compensation in the sense of labor law.And although the equity incentive contract has the subordinate characteristics of labor contract,it is still different from labor contract,but a special civil and commercial contract.It is a series of contracts signed between relatively equal subjects,with the grant or transfer of equity as the main content.It is significantly different from labor contract,both in terms of the subject and object of the contract and the content of the equity incentive contract.Based on the above analysis,this article then points out that the equity incentive dispute of listed company employees should be resolved mainly according to civil and commercial disputes.Since it will face many problems as a labor dispute,such as the conflict of values and the lack of regulation in the Labor Law,it is more suitable to be handled as a civil and commercial dispute,and the article also lists some applicable rules in terms of substance and procedure.However,the article also points out that there are some exceptions in practice that should be treated as labor disputes: for example,when the employer offers equity instead of labor compensation and when the name of equity is used but no equity is actually involved.In these cases,if they are treated as ordinary civil and commercial disputes,the basic rights and interests of the workers will be jeopardized.The author believes that the protection of workers should be moderate,and that we should not simply protect workers and simply classify all disputes between workers and companies as labor disputes,but should analyze the legal relationship in depth and protect the legitimate rights and interests of both workers and companies in a fair and just manner.