National security law: remaining Next Digital directors quit, call for company’s liquidation to ‘protect shareholders, staff and creditors’
- Chairman Ip Yut-kin and three independent non-executive directors resign from media group founded by jailed tycoon Jimmy Lai
- They say best interests of shareholders, creditors, employees and other stakeholders are served by orderly liquidation
In a notice filed with Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, board chairman Ip Yut-kin announced that all directors of Next Digital, parent company of the defunct Apple Daily newspaper, would resign with effect from 11.59pm on Sunday.
The four remaining board members said they came to the decision “to best protect shareholders, creditors, employees and former employees”.
“We observe that the events affecting the company and its people following the invocation of the national security law occurred despite there having been no trials and no convictions,” they said in a statement attached to the stock market notice.
“Under this new law, a company can be forced into liquidation without the involvement of the courts.
“We have concluded that the best interests of shareholders, creditors, employees and other stakeholders will be served by an orderly liquidation, which we hope will result in liquidators being allowed by the Hong Kong government to authorise payments that directors were banned from approving, including for creditors and for former staff.