股东代表诉讼制度是指在公司经营者或第三人损害公司的合法利益时，股东请求公司起诉遭到拒绝后由符合条件的股东代位公司提起股东代表之诉，以保障公司的合法权益。该制度最先由美英法系国家提出，经过了170多年的发展，如今已被绝大多数国家和地区所认可。我国的股东代表诉讼制度是在 2005 年修订《公司法》之际确立的，确立之初并没有界定公司在股东代表诉讼中的地位。在2017年《公司法司法解释四》出台后，第一次将公司定义为第三人。股东代表诉讼能够平衡股东、经营者和公司三者之间的地位，优化公司治理结构，促进公司发展。 本文首先从现实诉讼中存在的混乱，公司诉讼地位的复杂性，理论上存在着争议等方面分析了我国股东代表诉讼中公司诉讼地位确定的必要性，随后对美国和日本两种具有代表性的外国制度进行了研究。 最后，本文针对我国2017年颁布《公司法司法解释四》中最终确立以公司作为第三人的做法，总结出了三点不足，并提出了自己的几点建议。以期待更加有效地保护公司及其股东的合法权益，使股东代表诉讼制度的功能得到充分的发挥。

Shareholder Representative Litigation system is to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the company when the company operator or third party damages the legal interests of the company. The system was first proposed by the US and the British legal system countries. After 170 years of development, it has been recognized by most countries and regions. The shareholder representative litigation system of our country was established in 2005 when the company law was amended. At the beginning of the establishment, the company did not define the position of the company in the shareholder's representative action. After the promulgation of the judicial interpretation of company law four in 2017, the company was first defined as third people. Shareholder representative litigation can balance the status between the three shareholders, managers and companies, optimize corporate governance structure and promote company development. This article first analyzes the necessity of determining the status of the company's litigation in the lawsuit of the shareholders, and then studies the two representative foreign systems in the United States and Japan, from the confusion in the actual litigation, the complexity of the status of the company's litigation status and the dispute in theory. Finally, this paper, in view of the promulgation of the "company law judicial interpretation four" in 2017, finally established the company as the third person, summed up the shortage of three points, and finally put forward some suggestions.