Jiaxing Gao

Overview

Jiaxing completed her LLM in International Economic Law from the University of Warwick and her LLB from Hunan Normal University. Her primary research interests are in corporate law, with a specific focus on dual-class share structures. Dual-class share structures allow companies to issue stocks with different voting rights, typically with founders or management holding high-voting shares and public shareholders holding low-voting shares. While supporting innovative businesses, this structure also presents challenges in terms of concentrated control and investor protection.

Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach, integrating economics and law, and has an international perspective. Through comparative analysis, she seeks to propose regulatory recommendations for China's dual-class share structures and explore ways to enhance China's legal framework by drawing insights from other countries.

Jiaxing's research is supervised by Min Yan and Lijun Zhao.

Qualifications

• LL.M International Economic Law, University of Warwick, United Kingdom, September 2023 - November 2024
• LL.B Law, Hunan Normal University, China, September 2019 - July 2023

Employment

• Conference Assistant, Yingke (London) Law Firm, United Kingdom, September 2024
• Paralegal, Beijing Yingke Law Firm, China, July - September 2022
• Boundless Lecturer, iCourt, China, February - May 2022
• Paralegal, Beijing Yingke Law Firm, China, July - September 2021
• Paralegal, Beijing Yingke Law Firm, China, July - September 2020

Languages

Chinese (Mandarin) (can read, write, speak, understand spoken, peer review) and English (can read, write, speak, understand spoken, peer review)

Title of thesis: Dual-Class Share Structures in Gig-Work Platform Companies: A Corporate Governance Analysis of Platform Power and Investor Protection from a Comparative Law Perspective

2025 - February 2029

Summary of research

This research examines dual-class share structures (DCSS) as a corporate governance mechanism in the context of companies operating gig-work platforms, with particular attention to their implications for investor protection. Rather than treating DCSS as a purely financial or listing-related arrangement, the study conceptualises it as a governance structure that reallocates internal decision-making authority over strategically significant domains such as algorithmic management and data governance. In platform-based firms, strong network effects, data-driven business models, and high levels of market concentration tend to weaken external governance constraints. When combined with a dual-class voting structure that entrenches control, these characteristics may generate an “amplification mechanism” of governance risk, whereby decision-making power becomes both internally concentrated and externally weakly constrained. The research analyses the differentiated positions of high-vote and low-vote shareholders, focusing on the accountability risks associated with entrenched control and the structural vulnerabilities of public and minority investors. It further evaluates whether existing corporate governance safeguards—such as board oversight, fiduciary duties, disclosure obligations, and shareholder remedies—are capable of mitigating these risks in the platform context. Adopting a comparative law perspective, the study examines how different jurisdictions regulate DCSS and how legal design choices shape the balance between control, innovation, and investor protection.

Research students

1^stsupervisor

• Dr Min Yan, Reader

2^ndsupervisor

• Dr Lijun Zhao, Reader in Law