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| The Normative Dilemmas and Systematic Adjustment of Corporate Decision-making Power |
| Han Mengmeng |
| Editorial Department of Tribune of Political Science and Law, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing 100088, China |
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Abstract The newly revised Company Law provides an institutional foundation for the normative allocation of corporate decision-making power by adjusting the distribution of powers between the shareholders’ meeting and the board of directors, and by strengthening the regulation of controlling shareholders, de facto directors and shadow directors. Nevertheless, the revision has not fully resolved the deeply-rooted tensions in corporate governance practice. The boundary between mandatory rules and default rules governing the powers of the shareholders’ meeting and the board of directors remains unclear, and judicial divergences still exist over such issues as whether the articles of association may reallocate statutory powers and whether the shareholders’ meeting may overturn business decisions already made by the board of directors. At the same time, the expansion of board powers coexists with the statutory positioning of the shareholders’ meeting as the “organ of power”, resulting in the uncertainty over the attribution of residual powers in matters not expressly enumerated by the Company Law. In the local governance context of highly concentrated shareholding, controlling shareholders may hollow out the board of directors through capital majority voting, the appointment of directors and supervisors, and other mechanisms, thereby exposing the statutory structure of corporate separation of powers to the risk of distorted control. These intertwined problems constitute systematic obstacles to the balanced allocation of corporate decision-making power. They are not only key issues to be addressed in the application of the current Company Law and the formulation of judicial interpretations, but also core constraints on the modernization of corporate governance in China. Existing studies mostly focus on the repair of individual rules and lack a systematic examination of the allocation of decision-making power, making it difficult to resolve the deeper conflicts arising from practice.Against the institutional background of the implementation of the new Company Law and the formulation of its judicial interpretations, this article takes the development of new quality productive forces as an important contemporary driver and China’s highly concentrated ownership structure as the practical premise of local corporate governance. By comprehensively employing normative analysis, case-based empirical analysis and comparative research, this article systematically examines the threefold dilemma in the allocation of corporate decision-making power and constructs an integrated value framework consisting of “theoretical logic, practical context and contemporary demands”. It seeks to explore a systematic adjustment path suited to China’s local corporate governance practice. First, the article proposes a dual standard of “norm type plus power attribute”. Under this standard, rules on corporate decision-making power are divided into organ-establishment rules, power-allocation rules and power-exercise rules, while the relevant powers are further differentiated into the inherent powers of the shareholders’ meeting, the business decision-making powers of the shareholders’ meeting, and the inherent business decision-making powers of the board of directors, so as to unify judicial standards.Second, the article proposes differentiated rules according to company type: limited liability companies should mainly be governed by enabling default rules; non-listed companies limited by shares should adopt a model of “mandatory rules as the main framework and autonomy as a supplement”; and listed companies should be subject to stricter mandatory rules and enhanced requirements for board independence.Third, with the statutory clarification of board centralism as the core, the article advocates a legislative model of “enumeration plus general residual clause” to make clear that the board of directors enjoys residual business decision-making power except for matters falling within the inherent powers of the shareholders’ meeting. Meanwhile, control power should be corrected through procedural rules, fiduciary duties, rules for identifying de facto directors and shadow directors, allocation of the burden of proof, and standards for determining the reasonable price in share repurchase.
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Received: 19 March 2026
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2026, Vol. 56 
