Shanghai Municipality, Brokers Regulations

Promulgated: December 15 2000
Effective: May 1 2001
Applicability: For the purposes of the Regulations, a broker is a legally established brokerage organization or a person who has a broker registration certificate and who performs brokerage activities in a brokerage organization; and brokerage activities are commission-based services provided by a broker at the request of a client to facilitate a transaction (Article 2).

Main contents: The Regulations provide that the municipal administration for industry and commerce is the authority supervising and administering the brokerage industry (Article 6). A broker must obtain broker qualifications from the municipal registered brokers association and a registration certificate from the municipal administration for industry and commerce (Articles 8, 9 and 12). He must operate in the name of a brokerage organization and for each type of brokerage business he can only operate within one brokerage organization (Article 16). Subject to compliance with the relevant laws and regulations, a brokerage organization can be a company, a partnership, a sole proprietorship or a non-legal person entity (Article 18). The municipal registered brokers association is a self-regulating organization to which all registered brokers shall be members (Article 31). The Regulations set out the rights and obligations of registered brokers (Part Four), as well as their legal liability for violations of the Regulations (Part Five).
Related legislation: PRC, Company Law (Revised), Dec 25 1999, CLP 2000 No.1 p4; PRC, Partnership Enterprise Law, Feb 23 1997, CLP 1997 No.3 p25; PRC, Wholly Individually-owned Enterprises Law, Aug 30 1999, CLP 1999 No.8 p55 and PRC, Administration of Enterprise Legal Person Registration Regulations, Jun 3 1988, CLP 1988 No.6 p11