On July 9, eight central units including the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Central Bank jointly issued the "On Strengthening the Sharing of Supervisory Information to Relevant Market Entities in the Science and Technology Innovation Board Registration-based Pilot System and Improving Joint Punishments for Untrustworthiness" Opinions on the Mechanism” (hereinafter referred to as “Opinions”). As the first credit supervision document focusing on joint punishment of information sharing and breach of trust in a specific financial field, the "Opinions" put forward the prerequisites for sharing and emphasized the key role of cooperation.

To sum up, the "Opinions" mainly address two issues: how to use credit information and how to punish violations. When the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Shanghai Stock Exchange perform their duties such as issuance and listing, refinancing, merger and acquisition review, and registration decisions, they can rely on multiple national information platforms to obtain the credit information of major market entities such as shareholders, executives, intermediary personnel, and related enterprises. , comprehensively depict the credit situation of relevant entities; once the above-mentioned market entities and relevant responsible persons commit illegal activities, the untrustworthy information will be pushed across multiple platforms and serve as a basis for future review and registration of issuance and listing, refinancing, mergers and acquisitions, and reorganizations. An important reference for decisions and other responsibilities.

The main targets of dishonesty punished by the "Opinions" include not only the legal representative of the legal issuer and the company's directors, supervisors and senior executives, but also the relevant person in charge of the intermediary agency responsible for due diligence. Each responsible entity will correspond to the corresponding law enforcement department, which means that a case will have multiple departments involved at the same time in the future. Such a joint punishment mechanism for breach of trust has eradicated the disadvantages of only punishing the main person in charge in the past, increased the cost of violation, and allowed multiple parties to At the same time, being implicated in violations forced all parties to fulfill their duties in the process of doing business and gave up any chance of taking any chances.

Incidents of financial fraud by listed companies are not uncommon in the capital markets of various countries. As issuers, listed companies must bear the first responsibility for information disclosure. However, if financial fraud is discovered, intermediaries cannot escape. Its to blame. When the Enron financial scandal broke out in 2001, Arthur Andersen, the world's fifth largest accounting firm that provided auditing and consulting services to it, immediately went bankrupt. Even though Andersen said that Enron had concealed important information and repeatedly defended its reputation, it was ultimately unable to do so. Return to heaven. Intermediaries such as Citibank and JPMorgan Chase that serve Arthur Andersen have also suffered heavy losses.

At the beginning of this month, Kangdexin announced a trading suspension after the scandal broke out that it had inflated profits by 11.9 billion yuan for four consecutive years. This was the largest fraud case in the history of my country's securities market. According to the regulations of the exchange, Kangdexin has triggered delisting conditions, and the main person in charge will also be severely punished. As Kangde's new audit agency, Ruihua Accounting Firm has also been placed under investigation. It is clear that although the issuer has an information advantage in the issuance process, it is the direct subject of concealing important information, and the intermediaries failed in their duties and did not conduct corresponding due diligence, which also indirectly contributed to illegal activities, not to mention the long-term relationship between some intermediaries and listed companies. A close "friendship" was formed during the cooperation. Not only did they fail to fulfill their duties, but they helped the company break laws and regulations, violating the fundamental principles of auditing driven by interests.

The core of establishing the Science and Technology Innovation Board and piloting registration-based stock issuance is information disclosure. Securities issuance, trading and even forced delisting all rely on the issuer's information disclosure before, during and after the event. There are many relevant institutions involved in the securities issuance and subsequent processes, and the supervision of a single institution is inefficient. The joint disciplinary mechanism will have a huge promotion effect not only on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, but also on the information environment of my country's entire capital market. Not only that, strengthen the sharing of regulatory information and improve the joint punishment mechanism for breach of trust, but also strengthen administrative and market punishment on an overall level, further increase the cost of breach of trust for key groups responsible for fraudulent issuance and information disclosure violations, and encourage all parties involved in the capital market to Operate with integrity, perform duties with due diligence, improve capital market efficiency, and protect the interests of investors.

(The author is a young economist and postdoctoral fellow in applied economics)

(Source of the article: Shanghai Securities News) Solemn statement: The purpose of publishing this information is to spread more information and is related to this article. It doesn’t matter where you stand.