There is an allegation that a former accountant took bribes in the form of an executive appointment and share options, in return for falsifying accounts to help the company's April 2000 listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

The corruption angle is, however, peripheral to the big picture: that two executives of a listed company allegedly conspired to steal from the company.

It fits into what is becoming a theme with the ICAC these days: high-publicity arrests at listed companies where the alleged wrongdoings do not particularly hinge on graft. What it lacks in real anti-corruption agendas, the ICAC seems to make up for with sensational press coverage that dispels any criticism that it is twiddling its thumbs.

If the past 12 months are anything to go by, the anti-corruption body is fast becoming a law enforcer without a clear cause.

Thirty years ago, the ICAC's agenda was crystal: corruption was endemic, particularly in the public sector. On its own website, the body cites 'vivid examples': firefighters soliciting water money before they would turn on the hoses to put out a blaze or hospital workers asking for backhanders before they would give a patient a bed pan.

The days of blockbuster graft cases involving crooked civil servants and opportunist police are now, however, few and far between. The ICAC arrests that have grabbed the headlines over the past 18 months have had more of a corporate flavour, bar the misplaced diversion to journalists' newsrooms this summer.

This was on the premise that reporters had been mischievously used to disclose the identity of a witness in yet another corporate case, this time involving listed company Semtech International Holdings. Bribes were allegedly paid to help manipulate the company's share price.

It was also alleged market misconduct that became the key focus of an ICAC investigation into Shanghai Merchants Holdings in June, in which Mo Yuk-ping was charged. More recently, there was the ICAC arrest of Wealthmark International (Holdings) chairman Wong Chor-wo for alleged theft of $20.8 million.

The most sensational of arrests were, however, in June, when Kwong Hing International Holdings co-founder Li Man-tak and other parties were charged with fraud by the ICAC. Also arrested was UBS analyst Nicholas Tan Chye Seng, who was allegedly offered kickbacks to write a glowing research report on Kwong Hing.

It could be that the anti-graft body has simply acted on informants' snippets that fell on its desk, rather than making a conscious shift into the more shonky side of Hong Kong's stock market.

Either way, the agency is getting its hands dirty in a market ripe with corporate misbehaviour. While the ICAC racks up the arrests, other law enforcers are nibbling at the edges.

As long as the anti-graft body is effective, it is hard to fault it for targeting the corporate world, despite the dubious corruption links. Much time and effort is spent lamenting and fine-tuning the regulatory environment in the securities market, and it reaps few results.

What the ICAC does need, however, is a new acronym. The Independent Commission Against Corruption and Corporate Misdeeds seems more appropriate. Perhaps even a new power that allows it to it jump into corporate crime without having to have a bribery element in there would enable it to widen its scope in the market.

There could be a new unit staffed by both ICAC and Securities and Futures Commission officers to give a mix of brawn and brain to the process.

It sounds suspiciously close to a Serious Fraud Office-type body, or even a super-regulator, with both options fast to put fear into an administration renowned for compromise, rather than change.

Reshaping the ICAC's charter in the meantime is possibly more palatable, and would give it less of a wafting role in the corporate sector. Ultimately, anything that stops them from raiding newspaper offices cannot be a bad thing.