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While Hong Kong has yet to enact specific legislation on cybercrime or cybersecurity, this will soon change with the announcement of the proposal to enact a new cybersecurity law during the Chief Executive’s 2021 Policy Address and the issuance of a consultation paper on “Cyber-dependent crimes and jurisdictional issues” by the Hong Kong Law Reform Commission.

Please join us for a weekly series, hosted by Baker McKenzie’s North America Government Enforcement partners Jeffrey Martino and Jerome Tomas. This week’s discussion will cover the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) Statement of Protocol Agreement with the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and the China Ministry of Finance regarding oversight of PCAOB-registered public accounting firms in China and Hong Kong.

While Hong Kong and mainland China have had anti-discrimination laws in place that protect employees from various types of discrimination at the workplace, recent developments and increasing employee awareness of their rights have led to increased focus on this area. Whilst Singapore does not currently have any workplace discrimination laws per se, there have been some recent developments.
Join us for this webinar where our employment team from Baker McKenzie Hong Kong & China, and Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow will explore the discrimination laws and regulations in China, Hong Kong and Singapore, consequences for non-compliance, and what employers need to bear in mind regarding their human resources policies.

In one of the first cases in Hong Kong in which the court has granted freezing injunctions over bitcoins, the Court of First Instance has now handed down judgment in the trial of Nico Constantijn v Stive Jean-Paul Dan [2022] HKCFI 1254. The court held that the defendant acted as the plaintiff’s sales agent in respect of the plaintiff’s bitcoins. The court found the defendant had breached his fiduciary duties in failing to account to the plaintiff for the bitcoins and the relevant sales proceeds. Consequently, the court held that the defendant held on trust for the plaintiff the unsold bitcoins, the proceeds from the sale of the bitcoins and the fruits thereof.

This piece was originally published on Practical Law and is republished with the permission of the publishers.
The principal competition legislation in Hong Kong is the Competition Ordinance (Cap 619) which came into full effect on 14 December 2015. The Competition Ordinance prohibits businesses (undertakings) from entering into agreements with other undertakings that prevent, restrict or distort competition in Hong Kong. It also prohibits businesses with a significant degree of market power from abusing their market power in a way which prevents, restricts or distorts competition in Hong Kong.

In 2008, Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal issued a landmark judgment in Koon Wing Yee v Insider Dealing Tribunal deciding that if a regulator is seeking a financial penalty, the individual or company being investigated is, for human rights purposes, facing a criminal charge and entitled to fundamental Bill of Rights protections.

Hong Kong’s competition law was being drafted at the time. The enforcement framework and law were fundamentally rewritten because of Koon. The Administration said that appropriate criminal safeguards, including fair trial, protection against self-incrimination and standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, must be in place both during investigation and trial to meet the requirements of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights. In 2019, in the first case to come to trial, Hong Kong’s Competition Tribunal agreed.

Hong Kong’s data privacy law, the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Cap. 486) (PDPO), has been amended to introduce “anti-doxxing” provisions. The new regime creates offences to curb doxxing acts, and empowers the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (“Commissioner”) to carry out criminal investigations, institute prosecutions and issue cessation notices. The changes came into effect on 8 October 2021.