Drawing upon overseas experiences, notably the U.S., China introduced the legal regime for shareholder inspection rights in its first national company law and over the years, has gradually developed more detailed rules and made amendments intended to better suit the local conditions. Apart from written law, this paper also conducts an empirical study of how the law has been applied in practice, by examining relevant cases adjudicated from 2012 to 2017. The empirical findings show that China’s shareholder inspection rights have some distinctive features, and there are similarities and differences between China and the U.S. (as represented by Delaware). Despite the different types of agency problems in corporate governance between China and the U.S., shareholder inspection rights are similarly useful in mitigating informational asymmetry and facilitating shareholder engagement. Some of the differences, such as those on the number and types of subsequent litigation, can be explained by the different patterns of corporate governance strategies as well as different corporate litigation regimes between the two jurisdictions. This paper also reveals that there are some significant differences in the key elements of the legal framework for shareholder inspection rights between the two jurisdictions and based on this, sets out improvement suggestions for China.
Thanks to the Jangali Movement in the early decades of the 20th century, the northern province of Gilan in Iran was able to successfully establish a system of government that served the working-class population of the region. Although short-lived, this movement was a product of years of extreme exploitation of the labor, resources, and capital by both the national government and the global hegemonic powers of the era. The movement brought together an incredibly diverse coalition of working-class individuals who wanted to create a more equitable society. Under the current Islamic Republic of Iran, there have been several large-scale protests that have been triggered by similarly dire economic conditions. Although these recent protests have yet to bring about significant lasting change, the proliferation of each subsequent protest shows that the country is ripe for a serious restructuring of society, akin to the Jangali Movement that occurred a century prior, to focus more on the struggling working class population in Iran.
