China Securities Regulatory Commission, Network Voting for Shareholders' General Meeting of Listed Companies Working Guide (Trial Implementation)

Issued: November 29 2004
Effective: as of date of issue
Interpreting authority: China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC)
Applicability: "Network voting for shareholders' general meeting" refers to an information technology system whereby shareholders of a listed company are provided with the service to exercise their voting right in shareholders' general meeting off-site through the use of a network and communications technology (Article 13).
In the case of a discrepancy between this Guide and provisions on voting in shareholders' general meeting in rules or other normative documents previously issued by the CSRC, this Guide shall prevail (Article 12).

Main contents: The Guide stipulates that if a proposal made to the shareholders' general meeting also needs to be adopted through separate voting by holders of public shares according to relevant provisions, the listed company shall, in addition to arranging on-site voting at the meeting, also provide a safe, economic and convenient voting network system for the shareholders (Article 3). If the method of network voting is used for the annual shareholders' general meeting of a listed company, any incidental motion put to the meeting shall be announced by the board of directors at least ten days in advance (Article 6). Before the voting results are officially announced, the network voting service provider, the listed company and its principal shareholders have the obligation to keep the voting information confidential (Article 9). The lawyer engaged by the listed company to attest the shareholders' general meeting shall, with reference to the stipulations of the Standards for Listed Companies' Shareholders' Meetings Opinion, render legal opinions on the voting conducted through a network (Article 11).
Related legislation: PRC Company Law (Amended) Oct 27 2005, CLP 2005 No.10 p.21 and Standards for Listed Companies' Shareholders' Meetings Opinion (Amended 2000), May 18 2000, CLP 2000 No.6 p5