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In April 2018, Sir John Kingman was asked by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) of the United Kingdom (UK) to undertake an independent review of the Financial Reporting Council. The Kingman review which was published in December 2018 made recommendations for a major overhaul of the UK corporate financial reporting and audit regulations. A key recommendation made in the Kingman review is that the UK should consider introducing tougher regulation in respect of listed companies’ internal controls, similar to that applying in the United States (US) under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). This article is written against such background and examines what lessons and experiences can regulators and companies in the UK learn from the other side of the Atlantic in strengthening internal controls. It seeks to recommend what measures UK regulators and companies can adopt to prepare themselves for the likely introduction of a SOX-style regime of internal controls.

The request of Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, to allow a self-selected group of its past and present management known as the ‘partners’ the right to nominate a majority of the directors in its negotiation with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx) for an initial public offering (IPO) in 2013 reignited a new round of debate over the one share, one vote policy, which has survived for three decades in Hong Kong. Alibaba’s IPO application to list on the HKEx was eventually rejected which ultimately led to the company’s decision to list on the New York Stock Exchange. In late 2017, the debate on whether companies with dual-class share (DCS) structure should be allowed to list in Hong Kong re-emerged as the HKEx has announced that it would amend its listing rules to enable companies with DCS structure to list on its exchange, subject to certain safeguards and restrictions. This article examines what measures Hong Kong could adopt to allow companies with DCS structure to list on its exchange despite legal and institutional shortcomings of its financial market. In doing so, it will also make reference to other major financial markets in the world and examine how other jurisdictions have handled the issue of DCS structure companies.

In early 2017, the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau of Hong Kong conducted a consultation and proposed to put in place a regime under its Companies Ordinance to enhance the transparency of beneficial ownership of companies by requiring them to publish the names of their ultimate owners on company registers in an effort to meet prevailing international standards to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. The consultation conclusion was published in April 2017 which stated that based on the overall support for the proposed legislation, it seeks to introduce such regime by late 2017. This article is written against such background and highlights the rationales for Hong Kong in introducing such a law. In doing so, the article will make reference to the United Kingdom and Singapore which have also recently implemented a similar regime under their company law.

In March 2016, the Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) of Hong Kong published a paper to examine whether the financial market of Hong Kong should introduce regulatory framework to promote equity crowdfunding. This article examines the recent experiences of the United States and United Kingdom in setting a regulatory framework on equity crowdfunding and seeks to identify what Hong Kong can learn from its Anglo-American counterparts in regulating such activity. It is ultimately argued that these experiences provide a good platform for implementing a broadly similar regime in Hong Kong by permitting crowdfunding within the scope of current regulated activities.

Following the lead of the UK and Australia, Hong Kong recently proposed the tightening up of access by the public to directors' residential addresses and identity card or passport numbers during its reform of the Companies Ordinance, but encountered strong opposition from the media and various professional bodies, leading to the government's decision to shelve the proposal. This paper highlights the lessons that the Hong Kong government should learn from this failure to transplant a corporate law reform, which overlooked the differences in the unique local situations.

The request of Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce firm, to allow a self-selected group of its past and present management known as the ‘partners' the right to nominate a majority of the directors in its negotiation with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for an initial public offering has reignited a new round of debate over the one share, one vote policy, which has survived for 27 years in Hong Kong. This paper discusses the viability of allowing the dual-class share structure in the city. Although the United States has adopted dual-class share structures for decades, this paper identifies the major institutional differences between Hong Kong and the United States and argues that Hong Kong should not follow suit due to these differences.

The much debated Minimum Wage Ordinance eventually secured passage in the Hong Kong Legislative Council on 17 July 2010 and is to take effect on 1 May 2011. A Minimum Wage Council established under the Ordinance has made recommendations to the Chief Executive on the initial minimum wage level. This paper compares the minimum wage legislation in Hong Kong with that of other Western jurisdictions and seeks to identify what the former can learn from these international experiences in setting a statutory minimum wage. In the final analysis, it is argued that these experiences provide a good platform for implementing a broadly similar regime in the Special Administrative Region, albeit one with ‘Hong Kong characteristics’.

In October 2009, the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau of the Hong Kong Government published a consultation paper to review corporate rescue procedure with the aim of reforming key issues relating to corporate rescue. This paper compares the proposed reform in Hong Kong and the debtor-in-possession concept of the United States of America in Chapter 11 corporate rescue, and seeks to identify the reasoning behind the differences.