Well done Bank of China (HK), well done China Resources, well done China Mobile, well done all those big H-share companies which notably failed to put their names to the December 29 outburst of corporate bad behaviour.
That was the infamous day when the massed ranks of family-run listed companies took adverts in newspapers against new rules that would make it more difficult for directors to abuse their positions by trading shares while in possession of information about forthcoming results.
Alongside a number of companies controlled by people with unsavoury records, there were the blue chips and blue bloods from Swire to Cheung Kong, from Hopewell to Li & Fung, Hang Lung, Sun Hung Kai Properties, New World and Wharf, for example. They were making common cause against efforts to tighten up on trading by insiders.
In the forefront was the amiable but imprudent David Li Kwok-po, Bank of East Asia chairman and Legislative Council member, who last year paid US$8.1 million to the US Securities Commission to settle an insider-trading investigation into shares of Dow Jones, of which he was a director.
Taking the case to Legco was that well-known defender of the public interest, Abraham Razack, representative of the Real Estate and Construction functional constituency and a director of at least 12 listed companies.
Normally one would have expected the government to cave in immediately to such pressures.