- Title
- Inside information disclosure regime in Hong Kong, from listing rules to securities law: a comparison with Australia
- Creator
- Chan, Raymond Siu Yeung; Ho, John Kong Shan
- Relation
- The Company Lawyer Vol. 35, Issue 7, p. 215-223
- Publisher
- Thomson Reuters
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2014
- Description
- Although most of the developed securities markets, such as Australia, have already for a long time implemented statutory backing to their continuous disclosure listing rules, Hong Kong only enacted this law effective in January 2013. Before that day, Hong Kong relied solely on its Listing Rules to impose limited sanctions to those corporations breaching this disclosure requirement. Continuous disclosure regulations define what, how and when price-sensitive information (PSI) should be disclosed. These regulations, together with other disclosure regulations, are fundamental to preserving the integrity and efficiency of securities markets and a balance between allowing firms to raise funds and providing investors with protection. This article highlights a number of issues related to continuous disclosure regulations. A continuous disclosure regime for listed corporations with statutory backing is more effective in protecting investors than that without such backing, as a continuous disclosure regime relying solely on its listing rules without statutory backing may encounter difficulty in enforcing its disclosure. One major reason for this difficulty is the limited resources available to a stock exchange even it is eager to enforce its disclosure requirement stipulated in its listing rules. Hong Kong is a good example for illustrating this difficulty. Effective enforcement, in turn, is more likely to deter future non-compliance. Secondly, the difficulty in reaching consensus among all market participants could be a major hurdle for the passage of giving statutory backing to continuous disclosure in Hong Kong, indicating that enactment of continuous disclosure law in particular, and securities law in general, is a political power struggle between regulators and regulated entities. Thirdly, Hong Kong is particularly in need of a continuous disclosure regime backed with statute to reduce the information asymmetry problems under its institutional settings.
- Subject
- Australia; companies; stock exchanges; comparative law; disclosure; enforcement; Hong Kong; insider dealing; listed companies; listing rules; securities law and regulation
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1306200
- Identifier
- uon:21165
- Identifier
- ISSN:0144-1027
- Language
- eng
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