I. The validity of a VAM buy-back has moved from “void across the board” to “valid, yet not necessarily enforceable”
Whether a VAM buy-back may be claimed turns first on validity, a position that has shifted several times over more than a decade. Early practice, marked by the “Haifu case,” drew a line between a buy-back agreed with shareholders, held valid, and one agreed with the target company, held void — the concern being that a VAM with the company would harm the company and its creditors, contrary to capital maintenance.1
With the Minutes of the National Court Work Conference on Civil and Commercial Adjudication, the position turned. Article 5 provides that, where an investor and a target company enter into a VAM, and the target, absent any other statutory ground of invalidity, asserts the agreement void solely on the ground that it contains a share buy-back or cash-compensation clause, the court shall not support that assertion.2 A VAM with the company thereby moved from “void in principle” to “valid in principle.” It must be noted that what is excluded is only this one ground of invalidity — “a buy-back or compensation was agreed”; other statutory grounds, such as violation of mandatory provisions of laws and administrative regulations, harm to creditors, or breach of public order and good morals, may still render it void, and no sweeping conclusion can be drawn.
Yet the Minutes, in confirming validity, planted a crucial distinction: “valid” is not the same as “capable of actual performance.” This distinction is the very source of the two later gates of time and obligor, and the point at which subsequent decisions such as the “Huagong case” sit in tension with the position of the Minutes.3 For the investor, the VAM buy-back is from this point no longer a contest over validity, but a contest over enforcement — “valid, yet perhaps not collectable.”
II. The buy-back right too has a period of exercise; one who delays may find the right no longer exists
Validity settled, the next gate is time. It is the most easily overlooked by investors and the most damaging in practice, for the “nature” of the buy-back right remains unsettled to this day; and as the nature differs, so does the period, so that the same dispute may meet opposite conclusions in different courts.
One view holds the buy-back right to be a formative right: the investor’s unilateral intent suffices to alter the legal relationship, so it should be subject to a preclusive period, applying by analogy the one-year period for exercising a right of rescission; once the period expires the right is extinguished, and is neither interrupted nor extended by assertion.4 This stance appears chiefly in the decisions of the Shanghai courts, some of which hold further that the period for exercising a buy-back right should be shorter than that for rescission. The other view holds it to be a claim in obligation, subject to the three-year limitation of action, which may be interrupted by assertion and recommenced upon suit; this stance appears chiefly in the Beijing courts. Under the two characterisations the consequence of delay differs sharply: in one place the right may be held extinguished by lapse of the preclusive period, in the other it may remain within the protection of the limitation period.
In the Selected Q&A on the Judicial Answer Network (Ninth Batch), the Supreme People’s Court inclined toward the characterisation as a formative right, and held that, to preserve the commercial expectation of the company’s operation, where no period of exercise was agreed, a reasonable period of no more than six months is appropriate.5 Two points call for caution. First, as to authority, the Answer Network Q&A is a tendency-indicating opinion of the Supreme People’s Court, not a judicial interpretation; it carries no binding force and may not be cited as a basis for decision; after its issuance, high courts have still adjudicated on a claim-in-obligation, limitation-of-action footing, and the divergence has not thereby dissolved. Second, as to the structure of time, the “six months” is the period within which the investor puts forward the buy-back request — that is, exercises the buy-back right — not the period for bringing suit, still less the limitation period itself; once the investor makes the request within that period, the three-year limitation runs afresh from the day after the request. The two are successive stages and must not be conflated.
This understood, the investor should not treat the buy-back right as a protection hanging in perpetuity, available at any time. The prudent course is twofold: to fix, at the agreement stage, the period for exercising the buy-back right, so as not to be burdened by the uncertainty of a “reasonable period”; and, once the VAM condition is triggered, to exercise the right promptly in writing and preserve proof of service, so that both the fact and the time of exercise are on record — rather than resting easy on “a buy-back has been agreed” and letting the moment slip.
III. Who bears the buy-back duty decides whether this exit route is passable at all
Beyond time, the more fundamental matter is the obligor. Whether the party bound to buy back is the target company, or a founder or actual controller in person, makes the basis of claim and the enforceability markedly different, and often decides directly whether the investor can truly exit.
A claim for buy-back against the target company is subject to the rigid constraint of the capital-maintenance principle of company law. A VAM with the company, though valid, is not for that reason performable. One who asks the target to buy back its shares must first complete the capital-reduction procedure; where the company has not done so, the court shall dismiss the claim. One who asks the target to make cash compensation is limited to the company’s distributable profit; where the company has no profit, or has profit insufficient to compensate, the claim is dismissed or supported in part.6 The capital-reduction procedure is itself no easy matter: to reduce its registered capital the company must prepare a balance sheet and an inventory of property, notify and announce its creditors within the statutory period — creditors being entitled to demand satisfaction or corresponding security — and the reduction resolution must further pass by special resolution of the shareholders’ meeting.7
From this arises an intractable paradox. Without completing the reduction, the company may not buy back; once the reduction is completed, the corresponding shares are cancelled along with it, and there is nothing left to buy back. Corporate buy-back is procedurally tail-to-mouth and hard to land. Moreover, the new Company Law takes pro-rata reduction as the principle, and targeted reduction in a limited-liability company requires the separate agreement of all shareholders — in practice, near-unanimity. Investors are mostly minority shareholders of limited holding, unable to compel the company to initiate a reduction and unable to bring all shareholders to agree on a targeted one; hence the common spectacle of “supported in judgment, defeated in enforcement,” the winning judgment ending as a sheet of waste paper.
A claim for buy-back against a founder or actual controller in person is wholly different. This is a pure contractual obligation to perform; it does not trigger the scrutiny of capital reduction, profit distribution or other mandatory company-law provisions, and actual performance may be sought without any prior reduction — the basis of claim is direct and the path of enforcement comparatively smooth. Yet an individual’s capacity to perform is variable, the assets relatively closed and hard to trace and control, and subject to personal debt clearance and to enforcement coming up empty; the risk shifts from “institutional obstacle” to “capacity to perform,” and lies elsewhere. Hence practice often arranges the obligor compositely — agreeing that company and shareholder bear the buy-back duty together, or that the company is primary and, where it cannot buy back by reason of legal obstacle or want of funds, the shareholder bears it — the two routes complementing each other. As to credit enhancement, where a third party provides security for the company’s buy-back duty, that security liability is not discharged by the company’s failure to complete a reduction, and the investor’s recovery may be substantively secured through it; but the company may not, by providing security itself or by bearing liability for breach, circumvent the reduction and indirectly compel its own buy-back.8
IV. New legislative and judicial developments make the corporate buy-back route ever more cautious
The constraints on buy-back performance have continued to tighten in recent years, and both drafting and dispute response must attend to them. The new Company Law establishes pro-rata reduction as the principle, as noted above, making the “reduce first, buy back after” route harder than under the old law. On the judicial side, in the Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of the Company Law (Draft for Comment), it is further made clear that, although a VAM is valid, where the company has not completed a capital reduction or distributed profit in accordance with law, a claim for its continued performance shall not be supported; and where a party, by way of liability for breach or by the company providing security with its own property, in effect requires the company to bear liability, that too shall not be supported — save that security provided by a third party is not within this limit.9 It must be specially noted that, as of the date of writing (June 2026), this interpretation remains a draft for comment and has not formally taken effect; the foregoing is a display of the judicial direction, not a currently effective rule. Drafting and litigation should still proceed on the basis of the law in force and effective decisions, with attention to whether it is later formally promulgated and to the wording of the final text.
V. The value of a buy-back clause is fixed at signing, not after breach
Surveying validity, time and obligor together, the real value of a VAM buy-back clause lies in whether the right can withstand the test of time and whether the obligor is genuinely available for enforcement — not merely in whether a buy-back was agreed.
As to drafting, effort is well spent in four places. First, fix the obligor: beyond the company, set a personal buy-back duty on the founder or actual controller, or bring in a third-party guarantee, so as to avoid the procedural obstacles of corporate buy-back. Second, fix the period for exercising the buy-back right and its starting point, so as not to be burdened by the uncertainty of a “reasonable period.” Third, make the trigger condition, the manner of notice and the address for service operable, so that once triggered the exercise leaves a documented trail. Fourth, provide in advance for the company’s duty to cooperate in a reduction and for the consequences of breach, so that, even where the company cannot be compelled to buy back, the individual or guarantee backstop is activated. All of this must be done before the VAM target is missed and the dispute has arisen; to perceive it only at the enforcement stage is to hold, perhaps, a protection already expired or one hard to land — by then too late. The particular arrangement must still be assessed with care against the transaction structure, the type of obligor and the adjudicative approach of the jurisdiction concerned, and cannot be applied as a single template.
The value of a VAM buy-back clause is fixed at signing, not after breach: whether the right can withstand the test of time, and whether the obligor is genuinely available for enforcement, matter far more than whether a buy-back was written in.
This article is general information on practice only; the laws, judicial interpretations and adjudicative approaches referred to are subject to their currently effective texts, and it does not constitute legal advice on any specific matter. The validity, period of exercise and obligor of any particular VAM arrangement must be verified case by case against the transaction structure, the contract terms and the adjudicative approach of the jurisdiction concerned. The Interpretation of the Company Law (Draft for Comment) had not formally taken effect as of the date of writing; the formally promulgated text governs.
Author & Team

Xiao HuangheGlobal Partner, DeHeng · DeHeng Shenzhen Hengxin Legal TeamIn investment and corporate disputes, he handles the validity and performance of VAM (valuation-adjustment) agreements, share buy-back and cash compensation, the period of exercise and limitation of the buy-back right, the obligor and third-party security, capital reduction and the capital-maintenance principle, and the response where a judgment is “supported yet defeated in enforcement”; and PRC–Hong Kong cross-jurisdiction transactions and cross-border dispute resolution and enforcement.

Li RuiPartner, DeHeng ShenzhenFinance-lease and commercial-finance disputes, investment and financing disputes, cross-border enforcement, criminal defence

Lin BoPartner, DeHeng ShenzhenCommercial transaction structuring and corporate disputes

Deng ZhaowenPractising Solicitor (HK) · GBA Lawyer, DeHeng ShenzhenCommon law, Hong Kong-related enforcement and disputes

Su YingtongPractising Lawyer, DeHeng ShenzhenCriminal defence, investment and financing disputes
Knowledge anchors
- VAM / valuation-adjustment mechanism
- Share buy-back · cash compensation
- Period of exercise · formative right / claim in obligation
- “No more than six months” · Judicial Answer Network (Ninth Batch)
- Minutes art. 5 · valid in principle
- Capital-reduction prerequisite · the reduction paradox
- Obligor · company / founder / third-party security
- Company Law Interpretation (Draft for Comment)