October 25th, the 12th UCERC Saloon and the seminar on “Improving Entrepreneurs' Survival Environment: Abolishing Death Penalties in Relation to Fund-Raising Cases in China” was held in Beijing. Present at the meeting were Professor HUANG Zhen, Director of Institute of Financial Laws of Central University of Finance and Economics; Professor XU Xin, from Law School of Beijing Institute of Technology; Professor GAO Yan, Deputy Director of Unirule; and Mr. TANG Dajie, Secretary General of China Enterprise Institute. 
The meet was hosted by Professor FENG Xingyuan, Director of UCERC. He first introduced the background and the general methodology of this research project. And then research team members introduced their findings in the case studies on US, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Germany. 
The experts gave very helpful suggestions regarding the content, scope and the methodology. In general, they thought, economic crimes should be dealt with by civil law, instead of criminal law. There are four types of “illegal fund-raising” crimes, namely, the crime of “illegal absorbing public deposits”, the crime of “fraudulent fund raising”, the crime of “fraudulent issuance of stocks and bonds”, and the crime of “issuance of stocks, company and enterprise bonds”. The most common “illegal fund-raising” crimes are the crime of “illegal absorbing public deposits” and the crime of “fraudulent fund raising”. The most serious “illegal fund-raising” crime is the crime of “fraudulent fund raising”. It is very common that entrepreneurs get death penalty by this charge. It is also a problem whether death penalty applies to economic crimes. The international trend is the abolishment of death penalty, let alone death penalty to economic crimes. According to incomplete statistics, there are approximately 112 countries that have abolished death penalty in laws or in practice, which means a majority of countries have abolished death penalty. The experts at the meeting also suggested more researchers with legal background get onboard with the project in order to bring about more consistency to the research.
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