論證券交易法財報不實之刑事責任

The beauty and sadness of internal accountants: a study on the criminal liability of financial statement frau

財務報告記錄了發行人的財務與商業狀況，更是揭露公開發行公司資訊最重要的工具之一，證券交易法自然對其真實性與正確性有非常高的要求，更對於編製財務報表虛偽不實之人科以民事、行政、及刑事責任的處罰；單一的財務報表不實行為，卻同時屬於證券交易法第174條所規範的「為財務報告內容虛偽之記載」，及證券交易法第171條所處罰的第20條第2項「發行人依本法規定申報或公告之財務報告及財務業務文件，其內容不得有虛偽或隱匿之情事」，產生同一部法律二個法條對於一犯罪行為都設有禁止與處罰的競合問題；本文針對證券交易法第171條與第174條財報不實的規範競合問題研究，從證券交易法第20條、第171條及第174條的立法沿革切入，找出規範競合的源頭，並參考學者見解、刑事司法觀點重新思考問題並而提出新的觀點，以釐清我國證券交易法中關於財報不實刑事處罰的規範架構。

Financial statements are written records of a company's financial information and business situation. Financial reporting stands as one of the most important disclosure measure in a publicly traded company, so the Securities and Exchange Act (“the Act”) strongly demands its accuracy. Therefore, the Act imposes various legal liabilities on people who made false financial statements, including civil liabilities, administrative sanction, and the criminal penalty. However, Article 20 of the Act requires “[t]he financial reports or any other relevant financial or business documents filed or publicly disclosed by an issuer in accordance with this Act shall contain no misrepresentations or nondisclosures,” and it is so similar to the regulation of Article 174 V which prohibits “the making of false statements on the account books, forms/statements, vouchers, financial reports or any other business documents by any issuer.” Both Articles imposes criminal liabilities, but the level of punishments would be different. This article studies the problems of concurrence of criminal penalties in the Act for financial statement fraud from the aspects of legislative evolution, academic thought, and crime justice system. Finally, this article proposes a possible amendment of the Act to resolve this regulation concurrence issue