The Hong Kong Standard reported on Thursday that the principles of the new delisting proposals would be similar to those announced in July, but explained that the issue will be more sensitively handled this time round, with open-ended questions in the consultation paper designed to canvas public opinion without - hopefully - causing undue alarm.

Speaking to the Standard, an unnamed member of the HKEx listing committee, which spent yesterday discussing the content of the proposed consultation paper, explained the reasoning behind the 'softly softly' approach now being employed, observing that: 'Nobody wants responsibility for another mistake.'