Comparative Studies of Enforcement and Compensation of Securities Cases and Lessons for the Chinese Securities Law 2019

證券案件執法與賠償的比較研究及對中國2019年版《證券法》的啟示

中國最近在2019年版的《中華人民共和國證券法》中推出了中國版的私人證券集體訴訟規則。中國版集體訴訟在採用「選擇退出」規則的同時，利用投資者保護公共機構作為原告集體訴訟的代表，意圖在降低集體訴訟門檻的同時控制濫訴。本文認為該規則有可能面臨效率低下的問題。為解決該問題，本文在以下研究的基礎上提出了一種新的公私融合的執法和賠償模式。首先，從美國、英國、澳大利亞的證券市場監管歷史來看，本文發現無論是私人集體訴訟還是公共行政執法都不應該單獨作為主要的執法方式。因為全面展開的私人集體訴訟往往容易造成過度執法的問題，並且其還有賠償率低，結案時間長的問題。而公共行政執法則又往往面臨執法力度不足的問題。其次，本文根據美國、澳大利亞、日本、韓國和臺灣的證券集體訴訟案件的經驗發現，各國都很難將證券集體訴訟的激勵機制調整至相對平衡的狀態。此外，由於最佳執法威懾水平這一標準很難確定，所以在該基準缺失的情況下，我們無法知道什麼才是合適的案件數量，這使得利用美國式的私人證券集體訴訟來提高執法威懾水平的理論受到質疑。因此，本文轉而考察美國和荷蘭的ADR──仲裁與和解，用以探討它們能否成為私人集體訴訟的替代方案，但最終結論是它們並不適合解決涉及大規模群體的案件。最後，本文提出應構建私人訴訟與公共執法相結合的新模式。為了重建新模式，我們應該重新考慮政策導向和評價指標，轉而將重點放在提高賠償率和降低執行成本上，而不是增加案件數量上。基於這種政策選擇，本文從英國、澳大利亞、丹麥等不同司法管轄區的經驗出發，提出了一種私人訴訟與公共行政執法相結合的新模式。該模式主張由證券監管部門而不是法院主導解決案件，尤其是在案件的賠償方面。

China just introduced its version of private securities class action rule in the Securities Law of the PRC 2019. It combines an opt-out rule with a public agency as the representative of plaintiffs’ groups, which intends to control frivolous litigation. This article argues that this rule is inefficient and proposes a new public-and-private-convergence enforcement model based on the following studies. Firstly, from the history of the regulation of securities market in the US, UK, and Australia, this article finds out that neither the private class action nor the public enforcement should be used alone as the primary enforcement method. Because a full-scale class action tends to over-deter and public enforcement tends to under-deter. Also, the compensation rate is low and the resolution time is long. Secondly, based on the experiences of private securities class action cases in the US, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, this article finds out that it is hard to adjust the incentives of private securities class action to achieve balance. Moreover, since the optimal deterrence level is hard to ascertain, so without this benchmark we could not know what the right number of cases is, which makes the theory of using a full-scale US-style private securities class action to increase deterrence level questionable. Then, this article turns to examine ADR in the US and the Netherlands--Arbitration and Settlement to see if they can be alternatives to the private class action, but finds out they are not suitable to resolve cases on a large scale. Lastly, due to the above failures, this article proposed that a new enforcement style combining private enforcement with public enforcement should be built. To rebuild the enforcement model, we should reconsider our policy indicators, and turn to focus on increasing the compensation rate and decreasing enforcement costs rather than increasing the numbers of cases. Based on this policy choice, this article proposes a new enforcement style combining private enforcement with public enforcement from the experiences of different jurisdictions, including the UK, Australia, Denmark, where the resolution, especially the compensation regime is led by the securities regulator instead of the court.