Hong Kong Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung has announced a two-man panel to look into the penny-share fiasco which has left the SAR's economic managers with egg (or worse) on their faces, and said he would resign if he was found responsible.
"As the chief of the local financial market, I might have responsibility for the chaos. If the panel findings show I have made any mistakes in the incident and if such mistakes lead the public and Chief Executive to consider that I should step down, I will do so," he said.
After Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing announced proposals last week for the compulsory de-listing of penny shares there was panic selling, and the Government had to step in to tell HKEx to withdraw its proposals for further consideration.
The panel will consist of former stock exchange council member Gordon Kwong Chi-keung and barrister Robert Kotewall, and they will review the roles of the officials involved, including Antony Leung, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Frederick Ma Si-hang and stock exchange chief executive Kwong Ki-chi.
Mr Ma told yesterday's Legco financial affairs panel meeting that he bore a certain degree of responsibility for the incident, but said that that no one complained to him the delisting proposals were too harsh before their release.
In an attempt to exculpate itself, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has released a detailed timetable of its discussions with the Securities and Futures Commission, which nowadays has a measure of regulatory responsibility for market trading, and, amazingly, it emerges that the SFC wanted to set the trading threshold for share consolidation at HK$1, while HKEx had originally proposed only that stocks trading at or below one HK cent for more than 20 days in a quarter would have to consolidate their shares.
The crucial question is, when did share consolidation proposals turn into de-listing proposals, and whose idea was it? Any fool can see that if you make a rule that de-lists shares under a certain level, then once they are under that level they are worthless. At the minimum, a listed company should have, say, 3 months to make a consolidation proposal before de-listing could click in.
More than 200 penny stocks fell by between 5 and 90 per cent last Friday after the de-listing proposals were announced.
.
Network Tweets
Network BlogsContent
provided by
|
Archive | Resources | Partners | Site Map | Links | Newsletter Archive | Contact | RSS Feeds | About | Syndication | Advertising & Marketing | Recruitment | Terms & Conditions | Privacy & Cookies
Copyright © 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Tax-News.com
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Tax-News.com has taken reasonable care in sourcing and presenting the information contained on this site, but accepts no responsibility for any financial or other loss or damage that may result from its use. In particular, users of the site are advised to take appropriate professional advice before committing themselves to involvement in offshore jurisdictions, offshore trusts or offshore investments.
Write a comment