“债随物走”规则的理论基础是什么——以企业转投资案例为焦点的实证研究

最高人民法院于2003年通过司法解释创造了"债随物走"规则。这一规则在实践中常适用于企业将其重大资产对外投资的交易。现有的相关研究大多认为这一规则是对法人财产独立制度的违反,主要以继受人责任和公司分立作为对该规则进行限缩解释的理论基础。针对这一规则,截至2018年9月的全样本实证研究表明,我国法院在企业对外投资情形下适用"债随物走"规则有其现实的考虑,其决定性因素包括债权人的类型与新设公司外部投资者的数量。现有相关研究并未意识到这些因素的重要性。与现有理论相比,资产分割理论可以很好地帮助人们分析"债随物走"规则的制度成本与收益,也更契合目前我国的司法经验,可以为这一规则未来的适用提供指导。根据法院的判决经验与理论分析,法院应仅在转移资产的企业之债权人明显缺乏自我保护能力,且资产受让公司外部投资者数量较少的情况下适用"债随物走"规则。

On the Theoretical Basis for the Rule of"Debts-Follow-Assets"--An Empirical Analysis with Focus on Enterprise Investment Cases

In 2003,the Supreme People s Court of China created the rule of"debts-follow-assets".In practice,this rule is often applied to transactions in which an enterprise makes outbound investments with its major assets.Scholars in China heavily criticize this rule for it fails to respect the legal personality of the corporation,and mainly use the doctrines of successor’s responsibility and the corporate splitting as the basis for a limited interpretation this rule.However,a full-sample empirical study of this rule as of September 2018 showed that there were practical considerations urging courts to apply the rule of"debts-follow-assets"in situations where enterprises made outbound investments.The decisive factors in a case include the categories of the creditors and the number of external investors of the new corporation,but current theories fail to recognize the importance of such factors.Compared with current theories,the asset partitioning theory can help analyze the institutional costs and benefits of this rule well,match the current judicial experience better,and provide guidance for the future application of this rule.According to the judgment experience and theoretical analysis,the court should only apply the rule of"debts-follow-assets"in cases where the creditors of the enterprise transferring assets obviously lack the ability to protect themselves and the number of external investors of the company being transferred the assets is small.