Think tank may face legal action over fake adviser row
Publisher will stop selling report on Chinese cities by a controversial Hong Kong-based group found to be falsely listing academics as advisers
A publisher has decided to stop selling and distributing a report authored by a Hong Kong-based think tank after a South China Morning Post investigation found that the names of academics listed as advisers in the report were used without their consent.
Enrich Professional Publishing said it was prepared to take legal action "to safeguard the best interests of the users and the publisher".
The new revelations cast further doubts over the credibility of the China Institute of City Competitiveness (CICC), the author of the report, which is facing an investigation by the Trade Development Council.
An earlier investigation by the Post found that the names of at least six speakers or advisers for the 2010 Asian Financial Forum, held in Hong Kong, were listed without permission as advisers in a brochure produced by the CICC last year.
The report, the English-language Yearbook of China City Competitiveness 2012, was published in September last year and priced at US$158 per copy.
It was the first time that the CICC, which is now preparing to conduct a global survey on city competitiveness, had teamed up with the Baptist University's Advanced Institute for Contemporary China Studies (ACCS) to publish an English version of the report. It has produced a Chinese-language version annually for the past decade.