Civil servants inexplicably become bosses? The dilemma of 48 impersonated individuals, Qian Mou | Clues | Illegal and criminal activities | Difficulties | Referral to public security organs | Legal | Shareholders | Disguises
Personal information is impersonated by others and becomes a shareholder of a certain company overnight. The impersonated person not only cannot benefit from their shareholder identity, but may also face legal risks such as bearing debts, civil disputes, and administrative penalties, bringing endless troubles to their life and work. Recently, the Dantu District Prosecutor's Office in Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province assisted in resolving an administrative dispute over the registration of 48 fake shareholders. The illegal and criminal clues of Chen, Zhang, Qian and others have been transferred to the public security organs and are awaiting legal sanctions.
Civil servants inexplicably became bosses
In September 2022, Yang, a civil servant in a certain area of Jilin, was included in the inspection of deputy department level leadership positions. Quickly, the personnel program entered the final stage of political review, but Yang received a notice from the inspection department requesting him to explain the suspected violation of discipline by the business enterprise. If the situation cannot be explained, Yang will not only be unable to be promoted, but also face disciplinary action.
Originally, the personnel department of the organization discovered through big data review that Yang, a national civil servant, had registered A Investment Co., Ltd. as one of its shareholders. "I have no connection with this company, and I don't even know when I became the boss and shareholder. What's going on?" Yang felt aggrieved and confused when asked by the inspectors.
On September 26, 2022, Yang hired a local lawyer to apply to the administrative approval department for the revocation of his shareholder status. After examination, the administrative approval department believes that the registration procedure for A Investment Co., Ltd. is compliant and complete, and Yang has no evidence to prove that his identity has been impersonated, so he does not agree to revoke it. Yang filed a civil lawsuit to the local court regarding a shareholder qualification confirmation dispute, requesting defendant A Investment Co., Ltd. to voluntarily revoke Yang's shareholder identity. However, the court ruled that according to the relevant provisions of the "Guiding Opinions of the State Administration for Market Regulation on Revoking the Use of Identity Information to Obtain Company Registration", Yang should resolve this issue through administrative litigation, and therefore ruled to dismiss the lawsuit.
Yang, who had been hit twice, had no choice but to file an administrative lawsuit with the court again. Due to the large number of people involved and the complexity of the case, in March of this year, the court initiated the administrative dispute resolution mechanism based on the Implementation Opinions on Establishing a Collaborative Mechanism for Substantive Resolution of Administrative Disputes jointly signed by the law and procuratorate, and invited the Dantu District Procuratorate to participate in the dispute resolution of the case.
Find out the mystery of impersonation
The key to this case is to determine whether Yang's identity has been falsely used by others, and whether the signature of Yang in the registration materials of A Investment Co., Ltd. is his own signature. Focusing on the key points of the case review, Yao Lei, the prosecutor in charge of handling the case at Dantu District Prosecutor's Office, carefully reviewed the documents and visited relevant departments such as the Administrative Examination and Approval Bureau, the court, and the Market Supervision Bureau multiple times to investigate the case. He also questioned Chen, Zhang, Qian, and others who were involved in the registration of A Investment Co., Ltd. at that time.
"Our company's 48 shareholders, including Yang, are all fake. Some of their identity information was found online, and some were processed using someone else's lost ID card. Anyway, they are not real shareholders." Faced with Yao Lei's inquiry, Chen, then the general manager of A Investment Co., Ltd., revealed the truth. According to Chen's confession, A Investment Co., Ltd. is a shareholding platform, and according to the investor's requirements, the platform must meet the required number of shareholders to complete the next financing process.
So, Chen, who urgently needed funds to be integrated, entrusted a company registration agency to forge an enterprise registration document containing 48 natural person identity information. "At that time, registration did not require the original ID card, as long as there was a signature and a copy of the ID card. Later, I arranged for company staff Zhang and Qian to apply for shareholder change registration at the industry and commerce registration department, and the signatures in the application materials were all signed by someone I had arranged for."
To assist the court in investigating the facts of the case, the procuratorial organs also retrieved Yang's travel records and found that Yang had passed through the registration location of A Investment Co., Ltd. in the future. At the same time, the investigating prosecutor suggested that the relevant administrative department conduct handwriting verification on the signature of Yang in the enterprise registration materials, and indeed found that Yang's handwriting did not match the name and handwriting signed in the materials. By retrieving the company's bank transaction records, social security information, and tax information, it was found that A Investment Co., Ltd. is a shell company with no actual operations and no external debt or debt.
Resolving disputes goes beyond individual cases
At this point, the true story of Yang's shareholder identity has finally been revealed. The personnel department of his unit has also restarted the inspection process for Yang's cadre appointment, but the involvement of the procuratorial organs in dispute resolution has not stopped here.
"Can we apply for the cancellation of the company and completely solve the problem of impersonating shareholders?" According to the provisions of the Company Law, if a company submits false materials or uses other fraudulent means to conceal important facts and obtains company registration, the company registration authority shall order it to make corrections. On April 6th this year, a seminar on substantive resolution of administrative disputes was held at the Dantu District Procuratorate, attended by the Administrative Approval Bureau, the Judicial Bureau, and experts and scholars. Through the analysis of the case, it was found that the application for deregistration of the company requires a resolution from the shareholders' meeting. However, the 48 impersonated shareholders of A Investment Co., Ltd. are distributed in different provinces such as Sichuan, Guizhou, and Heilongjiang, and most of them cannot be contacted. Therefore, the approach of applying for deregistration of the company to solve the problem of impersonated shareholders is not feasible.
In order to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of the 48 parties involved in the case, the court consulted with the "outside brain" and finally determined that the procuratorial organ would formulate and issue procuratorial recommendations based on the facts and evidence found. The registration organ would then publicly disclose the suspected registration of the company through the national enterprise credit information disclosure system. If the investigation is completed and the investigation conclusion is made during the public notice period, a decision will be made to revoke or not revoke the registration based on this.
On April 7th of this year, the Dantu District Procuratorate issued a prosecutorial recommendation to the Administrative Approval Bureau in accordance with the law, proposing to initiate investigation and public disclosure procedures, and revoke the registration of impersonated shareholders in accordance with the law. On May 16th, the Administrative Approval Bureau replied in writing to the court that Yang's shareholder status had been revoked in accordance with the law, and the remaining 47 shareholders who were impersonated are being announced and revoked in batches. On May 17th, Yang applied to the court to withdraw the administrative lawsuit. Recently, the illegal and criminal clues of Chen, Zhang, Qian and others have been transferred to the public security organs.
