CSRC Enforcement of Securities Laws: Preliminary Empirical Findings

Abstract

Drawing on a dataset comprising all 447 CSRC sanction decisions taken from 2006 to 2012, this research presents preliminary empirical findings on an important component of China’s public securities enforcement activities: CSRC administrative sanctions and industry bans. In particular, it shows that the patterns of those efforts have shifted over time, from an initial focus on violations of disclosure rules to targeting a much wider spectrum of wrongdoing — insider trading and investment advisor violations, in particular. In enforcing China’s securities laws, the CSRC does not typically assume individual or corporate liability alone but frequently holds both parties liable, that is, considers both the culpable firms and the individuals responsible for the malfeasance in question. Industry bans are less frequently invoked to discipline individual wrongdoers than other types of sanctions, and when they are imposed they tend to be shorter in length and less consequential than they were in the past.

Keywords: Enforcement, Securities Regulation, China, Empirical