In a bid to put the “New National Nine Positive Stimuli” into practice, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) successively published the Opinion on Further Promoting IPO Reform and the No.4 Regulatory Guidelines for Listed Companies – Commitment and Performance by De Facto Controllers, Shareholders, Related Parties, Acquirers and Listed Companies this year, which require corresponding mechanism to be set up to strengthen the fiduciary duties of issuers, their controlling shareholders and other subjects of liabilities, and to supervise the commitment performance behaviors by parties involved. Under the leadership of the CSRC, Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) has always regarded commitments management as an important task. Recently, SZSE has completed the development of a Commitments Management System, disclosing to the market commitments made by Shenzhen-listed companies and their performance degree.
Submitted and updated via direct disclosure by listed companies on the official website of SZSE, the commitments in the public are excerpted from the prospectus or announcements concerning material assets restructuring, refinancing, etc., and involve subjects of liabilities including listed companies, de facto controllers, shareholders, related parties, etc.. The commitments are multi-dimensionally displayed on SZSE website under the column of Information Disclosure – Supervisory Information Openness – Commitments and Performance. Quick queries can be done by setting criteria based on stock codes, committing parties, commitment categories and performance degrees.
So far, all the Shenzhen-listed companies have completed commitment data submission, which was collectively disclosed on SZSE website on December 22. 12899 pieces of commitment matters were disclosed by Shenzhen-listed companies, involving committing parties numbered 17877. The commitments and their degrees of performance will be constantly updated by listed companies in the future.
As introduced by an officer of SZSE, the continuing disclosure of commitments and performance situation is conducive to strengthening committing parties’ sense of responsibility, giving full play to the supervisory function of the market, increasing the cost of discredit and tightening restriction on default parties. SZSE welcomes feedbacks and opinions from investors and the press via Easy IR, Investors Hotline, news reports and other channels. In case of incomplete disclosure or late update of commitment matters, SZSE will urge listed companies to make supplementary disclosure or update, forming an effective supervision mechanism. In case of commitment violation, SZSE will request subjects of liabilities to clarify and explain and strictly regulate dishonest acts. For serious situations, disciplinary actions will be taken.
The openness of commitment matters further switches regulatory focus of information disclosure from ex ante supervision to the process and ex post supervision, representing a significant measure of supervision transition by SZSE. The reinforcement of supervision over commitment performance is conducive to the establishment of a market environment of honesty and credibility, so as to better protect the legitimate rights and interests of small and medium-sized investors.