United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) entrance. Credit: Andriy Blokhin, Shutterstock
In the wake of Luckin Coffee’s spectacular accounting scandal, the U.S. government is finally moving to tighten regulations on Chinese companies listed in the United States.
The United States has long been concerned that China blocks the main U.S. accounting regulator from accessing books belonging to Chinese companies, preventing the regulators from investigating or monitoring potential fraud at those companies, even when they are listed on U.S. capital markets. Until recently, American regulators have simply had to look the other way.
Access to audit papers is important because litigation for securities fraud against a China-based issuer is otherwise going to be a loser’s game for U.S shareholders. Today, these shareholders need to sue in China to recover anything related to a securities fraud — litigation that likely will be useless. It is for this reason that Luckin Coffee shareholders will probably be left with no recourse to recover their losses.
If U.S. regu
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