On April 23, 2021, the seventh keynote speech of the “Fudan Transnational Corporations and Law Forum” and the fifth episode of this Forum’s special series of “TNCs and International Investment Agreements” was held successfully online. The speech titled “International Investment Arbitration and Shareholders’ Indirect Claims” was delivered by Associate Professor ZHU Mingxin of Soochow University Kenneth Wang School of Law.

Professor ZHU kicked off the speech with a brief introduction of the origin of the issue of “shareholders’ indirect claims.” Starting from the definition of shareholders’ reflective loss, Professor ZHU firstly introduced traditional solutions for adjusting the means to recover shareholders’ indirect loss under domestic private law and customary international law. Then, Professor ZHU used some landmark cases to illustrate the process in which the modern solutions for adjusting the recovery of shareholders’ indirect loss have been established. Subsequently, he explained the foundation, mechanisms, development, and categories of the modern solutions. Lastly, Professor ZHU highlighted the concerns over allowing shareholders to launch indirect litigation that arose from the sphere of private law and introduced three ways to restrict such legal actions. Professor CAI Congyan of Fudan University Law School and Professor ZHANG Sheng from Xi’an Jiaotong University School of Law contributed inspiring comments.

In the Q&A part, Professor ZHU and the audience discussed further whether to allow shareholders’ indirect claims and whether allowing so would constitute discriminative treatments of foreign investors, as well as which terms of international investment agreements would enable such legal actions.

On May 7, 2021, the Forum will launch another special series titled “TNCs and International Tax Law.” The first episode, titled “The Evolution of TNC Management Modes and the Choices of International Tax Planning,” will be delivered by Professor ZHU Yansheng of Xiamen University Law School.