ATV is seeking a judicial review to prevent the Communications Authority from releasing a final report on an investigation into a shareholder's alleged improper control over the broadcaster.
The free-to-air station took the action just before today's deadline for it to make a written response to a draft report in which the authority said major investor Wong Ching had breached an undertaking he made not to exercise de facto control over the day-to-day management and operations.
The authority launched the investigation after it received a complaint in June last year against the troubled station, which was later fined a record HK$300,000 for falsely reporting the death of ex-president Jiang Zemin in July.
According to ATV's application the authority also said in the draft report - content of which was revealed for the first time in the court documents - that ATV executive director James Shing Pan-yu was no longer a 'fit and proper person' to be a licensee. As quoted in the application, the report said Shing had allegedly 'allowed his responsibilities to be carried out and powers exercised by' Wong, who was said to be his personal consultant.
Shing had also doctored and withheld minutes of the weekly management meeting to 'conceal the true extent' of Wong's participation in the meetings, according to the report.
It found that ATV had failed to discharge its duty to adopt appropriate standards of corporate governance, according to the draft report cited in court papers. But the authority stopped short of concluding whether ATV was 'fit and proper' to hold a licence, according to the application filed on Tuesday and available for public inspection yesterday.