New accountancy legislator puts liability at top of agenda
Newly elected accountancy legislator Paul Chan Mo-po plans to use his position to push for reforms that will allow accounting firms to be set up as limited liability partnerships in Hong Kong, in line with international practices.
Mr Chan said he had placed this structural reform of the sector at the top of his working agenda for his next four-year term, since so many of his electors had voiced strong concerns over the issue.
'I will urge the government to change the law to allow Hong Kong accounting firms to be set up as limited liability partnerships or to have another kind of reform to cap their liabilities,' he said.
'Many overseas countries have allowed accountancy firms to run as limited liability companies or have proportional liability regulations. Hong Kong is lagging far behind in this area.'
Accounting firms in Hong Kong are set up under unlimited liability partnerships, which means that if a partner is successfully sued for damages by a client, the personal assets of all partners are at risk of becoming compensation.
This has imposed unlimited risks on the more than 27,000 accountants in the city and the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants has called for a change in the law to allow limited liability partnerships.
'The time is ripe for this change and it will be my priority in my four-year term to push the government to reform the law to allow accounting firms to set up limited liability partnerships to relieve accountants of the burden of being liable for the mistakes of colleagues,' Mr Chan said. 'I will also call for other ways to limit the liabilities of accountants such as putting a cap on the total compensation that may be claimed.'
Mr Chan emerged last week as the winner in the most hotly contested functional constituency in the Legislative Council election, with 5,696 votes compared with 4,116 for rival Mandy Tam Heung-man. In 2004, Mr Chan was defeated by Ms Tam by a margin of just 37 votes.
Mr Chan attributes his success to the more than 100 fellow accountants who he said had voluntarily assisted him to lobby accountants to vote.
Fellow accountants said his victory should be attributed to changes in his lobbying strategy. Unlike four years ago, they said, he had written several articles in the media to express his views and had spent time canvassing accounting firms to collect their opinions.
Mr Chan said he would also like to work with a group of veteran accountants to set up a resources centre to assist younger accountants with career counselling and China networking.
Green figures
In today's video and podcast programme, our guest is Ricky Tsang, the managing director of CaSO (HK) Engineering.
Mr Tsang has more than 10 years' experience in the construction materials industry and in today's programme he shares his experience of using environmentally friendly construction materials in Hong Kong.
His company was set up in 2004 and uses a product called CaSO2 which is a recycled building material. Its client list includes the government, the MTR Corp and other commercial projects in Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland.
'Unlike many European countries where governments have compulsory requirements for companies to use green construction materials, Hong Kong has no such regulations. More should be done by the government to achieve bluer skies for us,' Mr Tsang said.
