Read more about Corporate governance failings impede Asian companies ESG efforts : Report on Business Standard. Asian regulators should tell companies how to reform their boards to better address environmental, social and governance (ESG) challenges, according to recommendations published on Thursday
Apr 20, 2021
The Hong Kong government’s proposal to let directors obscure their identities on company registers is a retrograde step that will facilitate fraud and corruption.
Don’t take a journalist’s word for it. Don’t listen to the legal profession, which said in 2009 that ID numbers should be fully disclosed. Don’t pay heed to the accountants and corporate governance experts who warn that access to such information is vital. And don’t worry about the investors who say Hong Kong’s public registries have helped bring transparency and accountability to official and corporate dealings.
Just take the word of the government’s own advisory committee for it. Restricting access to ID numbers “may deprive the public of a means of uniquely identifying individuals, and might make it easier for the dishonest to escape creditors, or otherwise engage in fraudulent activity,” the standing committee on company law reform said in a 2009 consultation paper. “The op
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All the above exist in Hong Kong and were exposed, in part, by investigations using Hong Kong s Companies Registry, a public database that has become the subject of a fierce debate between the city s government and a coalition of investors, lawyers, journalists and advocates for transparent governance.
Though the registry s online search engine looks and operates like it was created 20 years ago, it is a crucial tool for a smattering of industries because it contains identifying information for the nearly 1.4 million active companies in Hong Kong and the people in charge of them.
Investors use the registry to research the business connections of potential partners. Lawyers use it to find the addresses of businesses they want to sue. Labor unions use the registry to issue complaints against management. And journalists use it to investigate possible wrongdoing.
Hong Kong s zealous anti-doxxing campaign could make it even easier to hide dirty money in the city kitv.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kitv.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.