Total transparency is best for Hong Kong’s chief executive to clear up UGL payment controversy
Mike Rowse says though Leung Chun-ying may have accepted the sum in a private capacity, no detail can remain private once an individual enters the political arena
Amid all the excitement about elected lawmakers being denied seats, unprecedented court action, the Basic Law interpretation controversy et al, the Legislative Council’s decision to establish a select committee to look into the UGL affair may seem by contrast rather prosaic. Yet the long-term impact could turn out to be of great significance.
The facts so far are rather straightforward: an Australian company called UGL bought the local arm of a property consulting firm called DTZ, which had become insolvent but had a recognised brand. Somehow, in the process, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, a former senior consultant at DTZ, emerged with a payment equivalent to HK$50 million, agreed before he took office but paid to him afterwards.
CY Leung insists he did not take any part in decision-making to remove ICAC’s Rebecca Li
CY Leung panned by democratic camp for questioning creation of panel to probe UGL deal
What interests me are the political implications of the saga as it is investigated by the committee and the full story becomes more widely known.
Let us start with the payment itself. It was apparently (in the main) a standard non-compete clause, that is, Leung could not work at a rival firm after the takeover, or set up in the same industry on his own account, or poach staff from DTZ, for a given period of time. There were also some minor continuing obligations, for example giving advice, counselling senior staff to stay on after the buyout, and so on.
Anything less [than total transparency] invites suspicion and misunderstanding, and puts a powerful weapon in the hands of political foes
The vast majority of Hong Kong people – something over 99 per cent – will not earn HK$50 million in their entire working lives. The idea that someone could be paid that much for not working will strike them as manifestly unjust. It will be an extremely powerful, and tangible, example of the inequality that exists in all societies but taken to the extreme here in Hong Kong.
