Monday 2nd July 2018
Dear Reader,
Happy 21st anniversary of the beginning of the (first) Asian Financial Crisis.
NEW ARTICLE
HK
Government invasion of the housing market
HK Chief Executive Carrie Lam has ended her first year with a new set
of interventions, building on the crumbling foundations of her predecessors.
It's time for a major policy rethink. A government's role is to ensure that
people have a home, not that they own one. And the government doesn't need to
own homes either. (2-Jul-2018)
RECENTLY ON WEBB-SITE
Why HK
has no retail bond market
The HK Government's Pilot Bond Grant Scheme is needless corporate
welfare and deflects from the real problem: by protecting bank profits from
competition for funding and effectively excluding retail investors, the
Government and HKMA are preventing a liquid, exchange-traded bond market from
emerging. We explain what they need to do instead. (13-May-2018)
Justice
is blind, except for haircuts
The Court of Appeal rules that a prison order requiring men to have
short hair and allowing women to choose is not discriminatory, because of
societal norms for haircuts. We find substantial flaws in this reasoning. We
also find that the UK rule which HK inherited was amended by 1999 to remove the
discrimination, something that Long Hair's lawyers appear to have
overlooked. (1-May-2018)
IN OTHER NEWS
SFC takes
former CEO and Chairman of China Forestry (delisted) to Market Misconduct
Tribunal
SFC, 28-Jun-2018
HKICPA
fines Baker Tilly and Mr Au Yiu Kwan over 2006 Egana audit | Our
article, 26-Jul-2007
HKICPA, 27-Jun-2018
At last, 11 years after Webb-site blew the whistle on the Egana fraud in our
article of 26-Jul-2007, Baker Tilly and its former director get a slap on the
wrist and fines of HK$250k and HK$100k respectively for their duff audit. BT
even tries to claim that it wasn't responsible for its directors' failings. The
audit fee for that year alone was HK$1.47m, far more than the fines. Egana had a
market value of HK$7.76bn (US$1bn) on the day of our article, all of which was
lost in the collapse.
Disciplinary action against Louis Tang Wai Hung, Cliff Chow Chi Kit and their
firm
HKICPA, 25-Jun-2018
For bad
audit work on the 2012 accounts of China Technology Solar Power (8111), formerly
Soluteck. Mr Tang is fined HK$100k and banned for 2 years. Mr Chow is fined
HK$75k and banned for 18 months. W.H. Tang & Partners CPA Ltd is fined HK$150k.
Webb on
"Backchat" re white elephants
RTHK, 23-Jun-2018
And much more besides...
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David M. Webb
Editor, Webb-site.com