Shareholder Representative Litigation Study

The introduction of the shareholder representative litigation system is a sharp weapon to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of small and medium-sized shareholders,and the introduction of this system is a milestone in China’s Company Law and fills the gap in China’s legislation.At present,there is still insufficient attention to difficult issues concerning the application of shareholder representative litigation in China,and it can be seen from judicial practice that the shareholder representative litigation system has not been widely used in China,and its actual utility itself has not been effectively brought into play.In order to further safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of small and medium-sized shareholders and give full play to the protective role of shareholder representative litigation,this paper adopts the method of empirical analysis,collects,collates and analyzes the judicial jurisprudence of shareholder representative litigation in China in the past three years,and puts forward the improvement path of shareholder representative litigation system in China according to the problems presented in the sample data.This article is divided into four parts,which are as follows:The first part summarizes the evolution of the system and the current application status of shareholder representative litigation after its introduction into China.In the part on system evolution,the relevant provisions on the shareholder representative litigation system in the judicial interpretations of the Company Law and the Company Law and the Minutes of the National Court Civil and Commercial Adjudication Work Conference are expounded and analyzed.In the application status section,the number of precedents since the introduction of the shareholder representative litigation system into China is obtained from the China Judgment Documents Network and analyzed,and it is proposed that it is still necessary to promote the integration of the shareholder representative litigation system with China’s legal system.The second part,first,explains the source of the sample data.Through the China Judgment Documents Network,using "shareholder representative litigation" as the keyword and "liability dispute for harming the interests of the company" as the cause of the case,the date of the judgment was limited to January 1,2020 to December 31,2022,and a total of 596 judgment documents were obtained.After screening and eliminating irrelevant and duplicate documents,402 valid documents were obtained,which were used as sample data to carry out empirical research.Secondly,a comprehensive and systematic empirical analysis was conducted on the five aspects of the plaintiff’s shareholding ratio and the reasons for losing the lawsuit,the identity type of the defendant,the company’s situation,the application of the pre-procedure and the litigation costs in the sample data.Finally,the analysis results of the sample data are summarized and summarized.The third part explains the problems presented in the sample data and analyzes their causes.On the one hand,it is proposed that China’s shareholder representative litigation system faces three main problems in practice: low activation rate,virtual application of pre-procedure and high litigation cost.On the other hand,the analysis is carried out from four aspects: conceptual influence,strict restrictions on plaintiffs’ qualifications,vague pre-procedure provisions,and imperfect litigation facilitation systems.The fourth part puts forward suggestions for improvement based on the three directions of relaxing the qualification restrictions for plaintiffs in shareholder representative litigation,refining the pre-procedure provisions,and building a system to facilitate litigation.Firstly,an improvement path to relax the plaintiff’s qualifications is proposed from three aspects: the criteria for considering the amount of shareholding,the exception of the holding time,and the expansion of the definition of the plaintiff’s shareholder qualifications.Secondly,in view of the ambiguity of China’s pre-procedure provisions,from the refinement of the relevant provisions of the pre-procedure,the suggestions are put forward to standardize the content of the request,strengthen the independence of the requesting authority,and reasonably stipulate the exemption of the pre-procedure.Finally,from the aspects of reducing litigation costs and direct compensation rights under specific circumstances,this paper proposes the construction of the shareholder representative litigation system to facilitate the litigation system,so as to realize that the shareholder representative litigation system can play its own value in judicial practice.