12 ASIAN LEGAL BUSINESS CHINA • 亚洲法律杂志-中国版 FEBRUARY 2024 COVER STORY be tested in practice, and legal professionals need to carefully study and thoroughly understand the new provisions.” With a long track record in financial disputes and disputes involving the Company Law, Zhang says that due to the current economic and financial environment, the frequent occurrence of private equity funds collapsing has led to a large number of investors attempting to safeguard their rights, resulting in a continuous rise in disputes involving the protection of the rights and interests of financial investors. “In these cases, due to information asymmetry, investors face difficulties in providing evidence. Further, the underlying assets of private equity funds are difficult to trace and recover, while fund managers have limited compensation abilities themselves, making it difficult for investors to win lawsuits and even more difficult for them to enforce their winning judgments and recover payments.” “In recent years, in corporate cases, there has been a gradual rise in the number of cases where creditors demand that the corporate veil be pierced and that the shareholders or actual controller of the debtor company, or its affiliated companies, bear joint and several liabilities. In particular, after the Supreme People’s Court promulgated the Minutes of the National Court Conference on Civil and Commercial Hearings, there have been more concrete rules on piercing the corporate veil, increasing the probability of creditors winning lawsuits, and the forms by which the corporate veil can be pierced have also become more diverse.” Zhang once represented creditors before the Supreme People’s Court where he successfully helped clients overturn the first-instance judgment and achieved a significant breakthrough of having the corporate veil pierced simultaneously in all dimensions in a single case. This is very rare in judicial practice. “Prior to this revision, there was no clear provision in the Company Law on the horizontal piercing of corporate veil. So arguments could only be based on analogies, basic principles, guiding cases, etc. It is therefore gratifying to see that this round of Company Law revision has added rules on the horizontal piercing of corporate veil in Paragraph 2 of Article 23.” Zhang shares that going forward, he will continue to be deeply involved in the field of commercial dispute resolution, and will take advantage of the opportunity of studying the revisions of the Company Law in this round to further improve his research and practical experience in cases involving corporate governance and financial disputes, so that he can continue to safeguard the rights and interests of parties and uphold the fairness of the justice system and the dignity of the law in an even more sincere and responsible manner with more indepth expertise, greater dedication and stronger strive for excellence. SECURITIES LITIGATION In addition to company law, there have also been many changes in securities law. Zhou explains some new development trends in securities litigation. “First, the rules for severely cracking down on securities violations and crimes have been further improved. So has the mechanism for transferring such violations suspected of constituting crimes. The percentage of securities violations such as information disclosure violations, insider trading and market manipulation that has been transferred for criminal prosecution has significantly increased. The system of party commitment has also been gradually applied in practice during administrative law enforcement. Therefore, lawyers need to assist clients to handle disputes properly in all aspects of civil, administrative, and criminal law fields.” The second trend comes from securities misrepresentation litigation that has attracted widespread attention. Zhou shares that the types of cases in this field are becoming increasingly diverse such that misrepresentation lawsuits have appeared on markets including the STAR Market, the NEEQ, the markets of public bonds, private equity bonds, corporate bonds, convertible bonds, interbank bonds, asset-backed securities, etc. Many institutional investors have joined the ranks of plaintiffs, while directors, supervisors and senior management personnel, as well as SONG SIYU 宋思宇 KING & WOOD MALLESONS 金杜律师事务所 YANG CHAO 杨超 HAIWEN & PARTNERS 海问律师事务所 YE JIAPING 叶家平 JINCHENG TONGDA & NEAL LAW FIRM 金诚同达律师事务所 ZHANG RUICUN 张瑞存 HUI ZHONG LAW FIRM 汇仲律师事务所 ZHANG XINGZHONG 张兴中 JUNHE LLP 君合律师事务所 ZHANG YAXING 张亚兴 HAN KUN LAW OFFICES 汉坤律师事务所 ZHAO QILONG 赵岐龙 KING & CAPITAL LAW FIRM 京都律师事务所 ZHOU WEI 周伟 ZHONG LUN LAW FIRM 中伦律师事务所
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