International graft fighters visiting Hong Kong have called for companies and people who use bribes to win government contracts to be named and shamed.
However, the government said it could not disclose names of contractors on its internal blacklist without the companies' consent.
In a survey of almost half of the 400 delegates at a symposium on corporate corruption, more than 90 per cent of respondents said companies that offered bribes for public contracts should be barred from obtaining future government contracts and should be placed on a public blacklist.
A government spokesman said: 'Unless the disclosure has the consent of the firm concerned, or is in the public domain, public disclosure will have legal consequences. For this reason, the government will not publicly disclose a sanctioned contractor, if there is any.'
The World Bank, which carried out the survey jointly with the ICAC, has its own 'sanction list', which names more than 200 companies and individuals, including three on the mainland.
Companies on the list are banned from bank-funded projects for a set period if they have violated the bank's guidelines.