First and second round equity financing activities prior to enterprises listing, are helpful for enterprises to raise capital to extend business scale so as to shore up enterprises' balance sheets. At the same time, private equity funds as the investor, in general, can obtain excessive capital gains. However, the information asymmetry between investors and enterprises leads to significant risk of investment and financing activities.In order to reduce the risk of financing activities, and to ensure and secure the transaction, investors and enterprises usually introduce "Valuation Adjustment Mechanism" into transaction for amending (or rectifying) investment valuation according to conditional clauses of the contract. In fact, different understandings of legal structure and effect of "Valuation Adjustment Mechanism" exist incourts(or arbitration institutions) at all levels which cause different verdicts among courts at different levels for the same case. For example, forthe investment case of Haifu company, which is regarded as “the First Case of VAM in China”, the first trial court, the second trial court and the Supreme People’s Court gave contradictory verdicts according to different legal bases. In order to maintain the certainty of commercial law, the Supreme People's Court has made the verdict that VAM whose subjects are shareholders is valid, while VAM whose subjects are enterprises is invalid due to its violation of the 20th article of "Corporation Law" and damaging the creditors' interests. We must double check what is the legal basis for the judgment of the legitimacy of an agreement based on its subjects. To its clarification, based on the principle of “Economic Essence” as theoretical basis of interpretation of commercial behaviors, this paper attempts to explore economic essence of various VAMsamong different subjects,so as to explore and study the potential damage and remedy of each stakeholder, and toidentify legal basis for the legitimacy or illegitimacy of such transaction. According to this research approach, we found that a VAM whose subjects are the enterprises is an adjustment for the distribution of the undistributed profits or capital - 6 - reserves essentially. Although such distribution is decided without legal voting procedures, it does not constitute harm to creditors' claims because capital stock is not reduced, only the interests of other minority shareholders are reduced to a certain extent. Thus we think such damage can be rectified by voting system in advance when introducing VAM investment into investor. This paper will be divided into five chapters to discuss the legitimacy of VAM subjects. The first chapter is instruction which mainly introduces the research purpose, review of current researches at home and abroad and points out the innovations contributed by this paper for the research concept of this subject. Chapter two summarizes the classic cases of VAM, the features of the two sides of a VAM and the operation of a VAM, determines the legal nature of a VAM, and expatiates the relationship between its legal nature and legitimacy. Chapter three sums up and rethinks the ruling concepts and key points of divergences among the three courts for “The First Case of VAM in China”, and compares different attitudes of courts and arbitration courts for the legitimacy of agreement subjects and analyzes the importance of legitimacy of agreement subjects.Chapter four puts forward the constructof economic essence principle as the legal bases for the judgment of legitimacy of agreement subjects. Chapter five is the core of this paper. Based on the divergences in judgement of legitimacy of agreement subjects for the “First Case of VAM in China”, this paper systematically analyzes the economic essence of investment and compensation property of a VAM in two steps, and discusses the legitimacy of agreement subjects. The final chapter is the conclusion of this paper. This part highlights the issues and subjects mentioned above, and sums up the findings onlegitimacy of VAM subjects.

企业上市前所进行的“一轮”、“二轮”股权融资活动，有助于企业获得拓 展业务所需的经营资金，从而改善企业的资产负债表；而作为投资主体的私募股 权基金，往往能够在企业上市后获得超额的资本利得。然而，投融资双方在信息 方面的不对称，决定了该项投融资活动是极具冒险的行为。为降低投融资活动的 风险，增加交易的确定性及安全性，投融资双方往往在交易合约中引入“对赌条 款”，通过合同的条件性条款来修正（矫正）投资估值。 事实上，各级法院（仲裁机构）在“对赌协议”的法理构造及法律效力方面 的认识却存在着一定的差异；这使得同一案件，有可能在各审级法院中形成了不 同的判决结果，比如，被誉为“中国对赌第一案”的海富投资案，三个审级的法 院就依据不同的法理依据给出了相互矛盾的答案。为维护商事法律的确定性，最 高人民法院做出了“以股东作为‘对赌’主体的协议有效，而以融资企业为主体 的协议因违反《公司法》第 20 条之规定并损害债权人利益而无效”的判决结果。 我们不禁反思，因主体之差异而决定一项协议是否具合法性的判决，其法理依据 何在？正本清源，本文试图以“经济实质”原则作为商事行为解构的基础理论， 探察在差异主体背景下，各“对赌”协议交易之经济实质，从而寻探究其对各利 益相关者可能的损害及对损害的矫正，以明确该等交易的合法性或非法性的法理 依据。 经由这样的研究路径，我们发现，以融资公司为主体的“对赌”协议，实质 上是对公司未分配利润（或资本公积）的分配，虽然该等分配未经法定表决程序， 但由于未伤及股本，因而并未对债权人之债权构成伤害，仅是有效度地损害其他 中小股东的利益，我们认为，该等损害是可以通过引入“对赌”投资主体之时的 事先表决机制予以矫正。 本文将分五章来讨论“对赌协议”主体合法性的问题。其中第一章绪论部分 主要是介绍选题的目的、综述国内外对于此课题的研究现状并提出本文对于该课 题研究理念的创新；第二章对我国“对赌协议”的经典案例进行总结、归纳主体 双方特点、对赌机制的运行方式，对“对赌协议”的法律性质定性并阐述其法律 性质与合法性之间的关系；第三章对“中国对赌第一案”中三审法院的判决理念 和争议焦点进行归纳与反思,并对我国法院和仲裁庭院对协议主体合法性的不同 态度进行归纳与对比，以及分析协议主体合法性的重要性；第四章提出“经济实 质”原则的构建，为协议主体的合法性问题的判断提供法理基础；第五章为本文 的核心，基于“中国对赌第一案”对协议主体合法性的判决争议点，分成两个步 - 4 - 骤系统地分析“对赌协议”的“投资性质”与“补偿性质”的经济实质，探讨协 议主体的合法性。最后是本文的总结，此部分将会把各章节讨论的问题和主体突 显出来，对“对赌协议”主体合法性研究结果总结。