判例译析｜证监会诉爱德华兹案SEC V. EDWARDS

译者｜王诗语 南京大学LL.B.

一审｜晏世伟PKU LL.B

二审｜Ellen Chen Cornell LL.M

编辑｜杜宜臻 范德堡大学本科

责编 | Izzy 美国西北大学LL.M.

SEC V. EDWARDS，540U.S.389(2004)[1]

证监会诉爱德华兹案

原告：美国证券交易委员会

被告：爱德华兹

Respondent was the chairman, chief executive officer, and sole shareholder of ETS Payphones, Inc., which sold payphones to the public via independent distributors. The payphones were offered with an agreement under which ETS leased back the payphone from the purchaser for a fixed monthly payment, thereby giving purchasers a fixed 14% annual return on their investment.

被告爱德华兹是ETS公司（以下简称“ETS”）的董事长、首席执行官和唯一的股东，该公司通过独立分销商向大众出售公用电话。购买协议中约定，购买者购买公用电话后，ETS向其进行回租，每月支付固定的费用，从而使购买者每年获得14%的固定收益。

Although ETS’ marketing materials trumpeted the “incomparable pay phone” as “an exciting business opportunity,” the payphones did not generate enough revenue for ETS to make the payments required by the leaseback agreements, so the company depended on funds from new investors to meet its obligations. In September 2000, ETS filed for bankruptcy protection. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought this civil enforcement action the same month, alleging, among other things, that respondent and ETS had violated registration requirements and antifraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b–5 thereunder.

尽管ETS将这一“无与伦比的公用电话”吹嘘为“令人兴奋的商业机会”，但公用电话并没有为ETS带来足够的收入来支付回租协议所要求的款项，因此该公司只能依靠新投资者的资金来履行其义务。2000年9月，ETS申请了破产保护。美国证券交易委员会（以下简称“证监会”）在同月提起了这项民事执法诉讼，指控被告和ETS违反了《1933年证券法》和《1934年证券交易法》的注册要求和反欺诈条款，以及10b-5规则。

The District Court concluded that the payphone sale-and-leaseback arrangement was an investment contract within the meaning of, and therefore was subject to, the federal securities laws. The Court of Appeals reversed. It held that respondent’s scheme was not an investment contract, on two grounds. First, it read this Court’s opinions to require that an investment contract offer either capital appreciation or a participation in the earnings of the enterprise, and thus to exclude schemes, such as respondent’s, offering a fixed rate of return. Second, it held that our opinions’ requirement that the return on the investment be “derived solely from the efforts of others” was not satisfied when the purchasers had a contractual entitlement to the return.

地区法院的结论是，公用电话的售后回租安排是联邦证券法意义上的投资合同，因此受联邦证券法管辖。上诉法院推翻了这一判决，它认为被告的方案不是投资合同，理由有二：首先，最高法院要求投资合同必须提供资本增值或参与企业的收益，而被告提供固定收益率的方案并不符合。其次，最高法院要求投资的收益“仅仅来自于他人的努力”，当购买者有约定的收益率时就不满足这一点。

Can an investment scheme promising a fixed rate of return be an “investment contract” and thus a “security” subject to the federal securities laws?

有固定收益的投资方案是否构成投资合同？

Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court.

奥康纳大法官发表了法院意见。

 “Congress’ purpose in enacting the securities laws was to regulate investments, in whatever form they are made and by whatever name they are called.” To that end, it enacted a broad definition of “security,” sufficient “to encompass virtually any instrument that might be sold as an investment.” Section 2(a)(1) of the 1933 Act, 15 U. S. C. §77b(a)(1), and §3(a)(10) of the 1934 Act, 15 U.S. C. §78c(a)(10), in slightly different formulations which we have treated as essentially identical in meaning, Reves, supra, at 61, n. 1, define “security” to include “any note, stock, treasury stock, security future, bond, debenture, … investment contract, … [or any] instrument commonly known as a ‘security’.” “Investment contract” is not itself defined.

“国会制定证券法的目的是为了规制投资，无论其形式如何，也无论其名称为何”。为此，它颁布了一个对“证券”的广泛的定义，足以“包括几乎所有可能作为投资出售的工具”。虽然《1933年证券法》第2(a)(1)节、《美国法典》第15卷第77b(a)(1)节、《1934年证券交易法》第3(a)(10) 节，以及《美国法典》第15卷第78c(a)(10)节中的表述略有不同，但本院认为其含义基本相同，它们都将“证券”定义为包括“票据、股票、库藏股、证券期货、债券、债权、投资合同等等，或任何通常被认为是‘证券’的工具”。但它们没有给“投资合同”下定义。

The test for whether a particular scheme is an investment contract was established in our decision in SEC v. W. J. Howey Co., 328 U. S. 293 (1946). We look to “whether the scheme involves an investment of money in a common enterprise with profits to come solely from the efforts of others.” This definition “embodies a flexible rather than a static principle, one that is capable of adaptation to meet the countless and variable schemes devised by those who seek the use of the money of others on the promise of profits.”

SEC v. W. J. Howey Co.案（以下简称“Howey案”）确立了检验某一特定投资方案是否为投资合同的标准。本院认为，应考察“该方案是否涉及将资金投资于一个共同的业务，且其仅仅依靠他人的努力来赚取利润”。此种定义“体现了一个灵活而非静止的原则，它适用于那些利用他人钱财、允诺获取利润的人所设计出的各种方案”。

图片来源于网络 (thebalancemoney.com)

In reaching that result, we first observed that when Congress included “investment contract” in the definition of security, it “was using a term the meaning of which had been crystallized” by the state courts’ interpretation of their “blue sky ”laws. The state courts had defined an investment contract as “a contract or scheme for ‘the placing of capital or laying out of money in a way intended to secure income or profit from its employment,’ ” and had “uniformly applied” that definition to “a variety of situations where individuals were led to invest money in a common enterprise with the expectation that they would earn a profit solely through the efforts of the promoter or [a third party].” Thus, when we held that “profits” must “come solely from the efforts of others,” we were speaking of the profits that investors seek on their investment, not the profits of the scheme in which they invest. We used “profits” in the sense of income or return, to include, for example, dividends, other periodic payments, or the increased value of the investment.

在得出这一标准时，本院首先注意到，当国会将“投资合同”纳入到证券的定义中去时，它“使用的是一个定义已被州法院对‘蓝天’法的解释所明确的术语”。[2]州法院将投资合同定义为“投放资本或铺设资金，以确保从中获得收益”的合同或方案，并将该定义“统一适用于”各种“个人将资金投资于一个共同的业务，以期仅仅通过发起人或第三方的努力获得利润”的情况。因此，当本院认为利润必须仅仅来自于他人努力时，本院谈论的是投资者在其投资中寻求的利润，而不是他们投资方案的利润。本院在收入或回报的意义上使用“利润”这一概念，它包括股息、其他定期付款以及投资价值的增加。

There is no reason to distinguish between promises of fixed returns and promises of variable returns for purposes of the test, so understood. In both cases, the investing public is attracted by representations of investment income, as purchasers were in this case by ETS’ invitation to “ ‘watch the profits add up.’ ” Moreover, investments pitched as low-risk (such as those offering a “guaranteed” fixed return) are particularly attractive to individuals more vulnerable to investment fraud, including older and less sophisticated investors. Under the reading respondent advances, unscrupulous marketers of investments could evade the securities laws by picking a rate of return to promise. We will not read into the securities laws a limitation not compelled by the language that would so undermine the laws’ purposes.

在这一标准下，本院没有理由区分固定收益和浮动收益的投资方案。在这两种情况下，投资者都被投资收益的表述所吸引，就像本案中的购买者被ETS“可以眼看着利润一点点增加”的宣传术语所吸引一样。此外，声称低风险的投资（如那些“保证”固定收益的投资）对更容易受到投资欺诈的人特别有吸引力——包括年龄稍长和不太成熟的投资者。根据被告提出的解读，不择手段的投资营销者可以通过选择承诺的收益率来规避证券法。本院不会在证券法中解读出没有强制语言要求的限制，因为那样会破坏法律的目的。

Respondent protests that including investment schemes promising a fixed return among investment contracts conflicts with our precedent. We disagree. No distinction between fixed and variable returns was drawn in the blue sky law cases that the Howey Court used, in formulating the test, as its evidence of Congress’ understanding of the term. Indeed, two of those cases involved an investment contract in which a fixed return was promised. People v. White, 124 Cal. App. 548, 550–551, 12 P.2d 1078, 1079 (1932) (agreement between defendant and investors stated that investor would give defendant $5,000, and would receive $7,500 from defendant one year later); Stevens v. Liberty Packing Corp., 111 N. J. Eq. 61, 62–63, 161 A. 193, 193–194 (1932) (“ironclad contract” offered by defendant to investors entitled investors to $56 per year for 10 years on initial investment of $175, ostensibly in sale-and-leaseback of breeding rabbits).

被告反对说，将承诺有固定收益的投资方案列入投资合同与本法院的先例相冲突。本院并不同意。Howey案中，法院在制定标准时使用的、作为国会理解该条款根据的蓝天法案例并没有对固定收益和浮动收益进行区分。事实上，其中两起案件涉及了承诺有固定收益的投资合同。在People v. White案中，被告和投资者之间的协议约定，投资者给被告5,000美元，一年后将从被告那里得到7,500美元；在Sevens v. Liberty Packing Corp.案中，被告提供给投资者的“铁一样牢不可破的合同”表面上是对种兔的销售和回租，实际能使其在最初投资175美元的基础上每年获得56美元，且为期10年。

None of our post-Howey decisions is to the contrary. In United Housing Foundation, Inc. v. Forman, 421 U. S. 837 (1975), we considered whether “shares” in a nonprofit housing cooperative were investment contracts under the securities laws. We identified the “touchstone” of an investment contract as “the presence of an investment in a common venture premised on a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others,” and then laid out two examples of investor interests that we had previously found to be “profits.” Those were “capital appreciation resulting from the development of the initial investment” and “participation in earnings resulting from the use of investors’ funds.” We contrasted those examples, in which “the investor is ‘attracted solely by the prospects of a return’ ” on the investment, with housing cooperative shares, regarding which the purchaser “is motivated by a desire to use or consume the item purchased.” Thus, Forman supports the commonsense understanding of “profits” in the Howey test as simply “financial returns on . . . investments.”

本法院在Howey案之后的每一个裁决都是如此。在United Housing Foundation, Inc. v. Forman案（以下简称“Forman案”）中，本院探讨了一个非营利性合作公寓的“股份”是否属于证券法中的投资合同。本院将投资合同的“试金石”（即检验标准）确定为“存在一种基于对从他人的创业或管理努力中获得的利润有合理的期望的共同风险投资”，然后列出了两个本院先前认为属于“利润”的投资者利益的例子。这两个例子分别是“初始投资的发展带来的资本增值”以及“参与使用投资者的资金带来的收益”。本院将这些例子与合作住房股份进行了对比，在这些例子中，“投资者‘仅仅被投资收益的前景所吸引’”，而在合作住房股份中，购买者“是出于使用或消费所购商品的希望”。因此，Forman案的判决也符合Howey标准中对“利润”的常识性理解，即：利润仅仅是指“投资的财务性收益”。

图片来源于网络 (nytimes.com)

Concededly, Forman’s illustrative description of prior decisions on “profits” appears to have been mistaken for an exclusive list in a case considering the scope of a different term in the definition of a security, “note.” But that was a misreading of Forman, and we will not bind ourselves unnecessarily to passing dictum that would frustrate Congress’ intent to regulate all of the “countless and variable schemes devised by those who seek the use of the money of others on the promise of profits.”

可以承认的是，Forman案对先例中对“利润”的诠释似乎被误认为是一个关于证券定义的不同术语范围的排除性清单。但这是对Forman案的误读。在非必要的情况下，本院不会束缚自己，影响国会规范“那些利用他人钱财、允诺获取利润的人所设计出的各种方案”的意图。

Given that respondent’s position is supported neither by the purposes of the securities laws nor by our precedents, it is no surprise that the SEC has consistently taken the opposite position, and maintained that a promise of a fixed return does not preclude a scheme from being an investment contract. It has done so in formal adjudications, e.g., In re Abbett, Sommer & Co., 44 S. E. C. 104 (1969) (holding that mortgage notes, sold with a package of management services and a promise to repurchase the notes in the event of default, were investment contracts); and in enforcement actions, e.g., SEC v. Universal Service Assn., 106 F. 2d 232, 234, 237 (CA7 1939) (accepting SEC’s position that an investment scheme promising “assured profit of 30% per annum with no chance of risk or loss to the contributor” was a security because it satisfied the pertinent substance of the Howey test, “[t]he investment of money with the expectation of profit through the efforts of other persons”); see also SEC v. American Trailer Rentals Co., 379 U. S. 594, 598 (1965) (noting that “the SEC advised” the respondent that its “sale and lease-back arrangements,” in which investors received “a set 2% of their investment per month for 10 years,” “were investment contracts and therefore securities” under the 1933 Act).

鉴于被告的观点既不符合证券法的宗旨，也没有得到先例的支持，因此证监会一直采取相反的立场并不令人惊讶。它坚持认为，固定收益的承诺并不影响一个方案是投资合同。它也确实在正式裁决中这样做了，例如，在Abbett, Sommer & Co. v. SEC案中，它认为与一系列管理服务和在违约情况下回购票据的承诺一起出售的抵押票据是投资合同；以及在执法行为中，如SEC v. Universal Service Assn案，（法院）接受了证监会的立场，即一个承诺“保证每年30%的利润，且出资人不会有任何风险或损失的”的投资方案是一种证券，因为它符合Howey标准的要求，“通过他人的努力进行资金投资并期望获得利润”；还有在SEC v. American Trailer Rentals Co.案中，证监会指出，被告的“售后回租方案”，即投资者在10年内每月获得其投资的2%，根据《1933年证券法》“是投资合同，因此是证券”。

We hold that an investment scheme promising a fixed rate of return can be an “investment contract” and thus a “security” subject to the federal securities laws.

本院认为，一个承诺固定收益率的投资方案可以是一个“投资合同”，因此是受联邦证券法管辖的“证券”。

注释

[1] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/540/389/

[2] 蓝天法又称股票买卖控制法，是指在美国，股份公司发行新股票，除要符合证监会制定的要求外，各州的地方政府同时制定的关于防止欺诈、保护投资者利益的一系列法律。（来源：MBA智库）