Recently, there have been successive events of environmental violations happened among listed companies. CCTV reported on April 17 that Shanxi Sanwei Group made seriously damages to the surrounding ecology with illegal dump and discharge of industrial residues and wastewater. On April 20, the Ministry of Ecological Environment imposed a circular on Jiangsu Huifeng Agrochemical Co., Ltd. (referred to as “Huifeng”) for its violations of environmental regulations. According to the circular, Huifeng has issues of illegal disposal, transfer and storage of hazardous wastes, long-term secrete discharge of high-concentration toxic and harmful wastewater, as well as irregular running of treatment facilities.
With regard to the said matter, SZSE quickly adopted the following regulatory measures in first time. First, considering the circulated information, SZSE made serious review on the previous information disclosure of Huifeng. Second, based on the media reports and the clues in investor complaints, SZSE took such regulation measures as telephone inquiries, issuance of letters of inquiry and concern, on Huifeng in a timely manner, requiring Huifeng to offer detail explanations and urging it to earnestly perform its disclosure obligations. Third, by fully employing a resultant force of regulation, SZSE circulated the relevant information to the securities regulatory bureaus under administration to ask for interested institutions’ attention to the risk of corporate violations and the authenticity, accuracy and integrity of information disclosure.
After preliminary check, it’s found that Huifeng was suspected of not disclosing in time the issues such as major environmental pollutions and executives being investigated by competent authorities. The said behaviors of Huifeng invite suspicions on severe breach of Rules Governing Share Listing, Guidelines for the Standard Operation of Listed Companies on SME Board, and other stipulations. SZSE will sternly deal the subject of such issues and start the denouncement punishment process on Huifeng and interested parties.
An SZSE principal said that SZSE has been highly valuing the information disclosure on environmental protection by listed companies and has implemented multiple measures simultaneously to constantly construct a disclosure system for the environmental protection of listed units and strengthen relevant disclosure regulation. First, in the Guidelines for the Standard Operation of Listed Companies, it is specified that listed units shall seriously perform their environmental responsibilities such as developing and executing environmental policies, promoting environmental processes and techniques, as well as disclosing and rectifying major environmental pollutions. Second, to put into practice the Guidelines for the Content and Format of Annual Reports issued by CSRC, SZSE has further detailed in Memo of Information Disclosure on Periodic Reports the disclosure requirements on listed units’ environmental protection, especially for the following two groups: the key discharging units included in environmental departments’ announcements and the listed companies shortlisted as heavy polluters together with their subsidiaries. Third, as per the principle of strict, comprehensive, law-based regulation on the environmental disclosure by listed units, SZSE, after post review, has issued letters of regulation in a timely manner to the public companies that are listed as key discharging units under environmental departments’ monitoring but did not disclose environmental information in their annual or extraordinary announcements, requiring supplementary disclosure.
The SZSE principle indicated that SZSE, shouldering its political responsibility of environmental protection, will keep improving the rule system on listed companies’ environmental disclosure and strictly regulate such disclosure behaviors so as to give a leg up to them in facilitating the optimization of their industrial structures, forming approaches to green production development, and actively participating in the system building of pollution control and comprehensive environmental governance. Once there is a found violation of environmental disclosure, SZSE will investigate into it and will not be soft in cracking it down, thus pulling all players together to win the pollution control battle.
