In a shareholder dispute case handled by our firm, we represented a shareholder in filing a lawsuit against the company to exercise the right to information, specifically requesting access to original accounting documents. However, determining the scope of these original documents has been a persistent challenge in practice.

When courts support shareholders’ requests to access accounting documents, they typically rely on the Accounting Law. In shareholder right-to-information disputes, courts often phrase their rulings as follows: "The defendant shall, within XX days from the effective date of this judgment, provide accounting documents (including bookkeeping vouchers, original vouchers, and relevant materials filed as original vouchers for record-keeping purposes) for the plaintiff’s review."

However, the phrase "relevant materials filed as original vouchers for record-keeping purposes" remains vague, which often leads to disputes between shareholders and companies over the scope of original documents after a successful lawsuit. This ambiguity is a major reason for the difficulty in enforcing such judgments.

To address this issue, we have formulated our litigation request in a more specific manner: "Order the defendant to provide all accounting documents (including bookkeeping vouchers, bank statements, and original vouchers, with original vouchers encompassing but not limited to economic contracts, invoices, company bank account information, asset inventories, asset ownership and usage certificates, and approval documents for economic activities authorized by relevant higher authorities) for the plaintiff’s review." We have also provided corresponding legal bases and case law references to support our request.