Methods adopted to satisfy HK needs
The review says it aims to streamline existing practice by adopting the best international methods to local needs.
This is achieved by drawing on new models rather than 'cobbling bits and pieces of foreign legislation together', it says.
The underlying legal concept will be to adopt a 'core company approach' and the unbundling of company law from securities and insolvency law.
Project consultant Ermanno Pascutto said: 'The reforms being recommended are evolutionary. The essential features of companies will remain unchanged.
'The terms of reference asked us to consider our work in the light of non-intervention,' he said.
'We believe our policies are consistent with the non-interventionist, free-market policy.' A key to the reforms will be to introduce quick, one-step incorporation procedures.
Less than 30 per cent of Hong Kong listed companies are incorporated under the local companies ordinance.
The report recommends: One person, one director companies; The allowing of electronic filing and record keeping; and Import-export provisions to facilitate international operations.
The overall thrust of the report is to streamline and rationalise a cumbersome legal structure inherited from Britain and amend it in a piecemeal fashion.
