https://www.scmp.com/rss/317586/feed Dr Bryane Michael is currently a senior fellow at the University of Hong Kong and advises the UN and EU. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Bryane Michael Bryane Michael Many people have hyped up decentralised financial technology, or fintech, in recent months, and for good reason. What if Yung Kee could have printed its own tokens which work like a stock, bond, currency, passkey, derivative, commodity, ID card and smart contract – all at the same time? These tokens squeeze many transactions into one and can live outside any single organisation. They even can have their own democratic voting mechanism built right into them. The whole world would probably be... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3212177/dont-let-regulators-fear-cryptocurrency-choke-fintechs-potential?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3212177/dont-let-regulators-fear-cryptocurrency-choke-fintechs-potential?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Mar 2023 19:30:10 +0000 Talking trash could land you in jail. Or at least that is the proposal of groups like the police and public hygiene unions. Jurisdictions like France and Turkey already have rules that Hong Kong’s law enforcement bodies seek to implant here. Many have called the controversial move more political than legal. I beg to disagree. Lèse-majesté – or offending the dignity of the sovereign and its servants – dates back to the Roman Empire. Its criminalisation was and is – by its very nature – a legal... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/2082444/lese-majeste-crimes-are-historical-relic-incompatible-hong-kong-law?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/2082444/lese-majeste-crimes-are-historical-relic-incompatible-hong-kong-law?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 Mar 2017 15:17:09 +0000 Trust in our law enforcement bodies has reached a nadir. Numerous academic polls about our trust in the police typically say that about 35 per cent of us do not trust the police. Another poll said that about 45 per cent of respondents did not trust the Independent Police Complaints Council. The Independent Commission Against Corruption came in last in a recent University of Hong Kong poll of public satisfaction in government services. How can we trust institutions cloaked in secrecy and... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/2072356/trust-must-be-restored-hong-kongs-law-enforcement-agencies?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/2072356/trust-must-be-restored-hong-kongs-law-enforcement-agencies?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Feb 2017 08:15:45 +0000 Everyone talks about the lack of human rights on the mainland. Yet, the recent case of the 32-year-old Pakistani man, known in court documents as Zn, shows Hong Kong’s own affinity for the “Chinese model” of protecting human rights. Zn allegedly informed the police, immigration and labour departments that he was a victim of human trafficking. Instead of helping him, they imprisoned him. Hong Kong – it seemed – did not have specific laws against forced labour. Too bad. Actually, the case has... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/2064730/how-hong-kong-contributes-chinas-human-rights-law?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/2064730/how-hong-kong-contributes-chinas-human-rights-law?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 Jan 2017 15:38:58 +0000 Qianhai. Is it a glorified real estate project? Or a revolutionary new approach to replicating Silicon Valley? It depends on what the Hong Kong government does soon. Replicating Hong Kong’s own innovation programmes will handicap the project from the start. The Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation Ordinance imposes no need to make profits. The ordinance does though give the financial secretary complete power over the corporation – to approve investment plans and force it to do his... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2053930/throw-shackles-make-qianhai-economic-zone-truly-innovative?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2053930/throw-shackles-make-qianhai-economic-zone-truly-innovative?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Dec 2016 09:26:14 +0000 The National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s decision on the recent oath-taking scandal has seemed to stop the speculation about the decision’s repercussions. A range of commentators have opined about the ruling’s probable consequences for weeks. Martin Lee Chu-ming and others have warned that the ruling will undermine Hong Kong’s judiciary, rule of law and thus self-autonomy. Alice Wu has warned that the decision would undermine Hong Kong’s sovereignty. Cora Chan’s relatively... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2047925/beijing-ruling-victory-pragmatism-there-may-be-silver?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2047925/beijing-ruling-victory-pragmatism-there-may-be-silver?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 21 Nov 2016 08:08:29 +0000 Numerous irregularities at the start of the 2016 Legco session have brought the role of law in politics to the fore. Are the ousted Youngspiration lawmakers allowed to modify the swearing-in oath? Does the Legco president need to show written proof that he renounced his UK citizenship before applying for his post? Can the Legco president decide unilaterally to keep certain Legco members out of the chamber by himself? At the heart of the present gridlock lies a Kafkaesque political environment... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2041628/legco-brouhaha-reveals-dark-side-rule-law-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2041628/legco-brouhaha-reveals-dark-side-rule-law-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 31 Oct 2016 08:15:45 +0000 Local elections took place in Hong Kong earlier this month. With elections come the usual shenanigans. Wong Yuk-man changes his political stripes. Former chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang calls on the government to restore trust in Legco’s politicians. Yet, with unlimited licence to lie, how can we trust our politicians? We don’t. Recent surveys show that only 35 per cent of us trust the government – and 40 per cent of us actively distrust the government. Combating similar trends in the... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2018596/contract-trust-how-stop-politicians-lying?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2018596/contract-trust-how-stop-politicians-lying?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Sep 2016 08:13:49 +0000 With that headline, you thought I would talk about the Turkish coup, the umbrella movement and the fishball revolution, didn’t you? I am a jurist, not a blogger. Instead, I want to talk about a branch of the law that few (even in my own institution) know about – Deep Law. Deep Law refers to the law that allows the army – and its other partners in the Deep State – to over-throw the government. Attempted coup merely the latest in a long line of Turkish military interventions Turkish law and custom... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2004125/hong-kong-istanbul-and-influence-deep-state?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2004125/hong-kong-istanbul-and-influence-deep-state?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Aug 2016 08:15:45 +0000 Recent headlines describe the supposedly ominous forces at work at (and on) the ICAC. Were Rebecca Li Bo-lan and other colleagues on the heels of a red-hot anti-corruption investigation of Hong Kong’s chief executive? Or has media hype whipped up yet another tempest in a teapot? It may be time to review what we know about “decoronating” a sitting head of government on corruption charges. How does Hong Kong handle it? How do other countries deal with it? And how should we deal with it in the... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1991458/hong-kong-legislative-council-needs-stronger-role-when-it?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1991458/hong-kong-legislative-council-needs-stronger-role-when-it?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:30:00 +0000 Almost everyone has an opinion about Brexit’s effects on Hong Kong. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying views Brexit with trepidation. Opinion polls from these hallowed pages highlight the role that Hong Kong’s legal and financial institutions could play in a post-Brexit world. Voices from the professional services sectors – mainly from finance and law – encourage “contingency planning” and now “risk/damage mitigation”. Yet, for all the theorising and opinion-mongering, few provide details or hard... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1988414/letter-law-why-brexit-golden-opportunity-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1988414/letter-law-why-brexit-golden-opportunity-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Jul 2016 08:28:02 +0000 Hong Kong hopes to insert itself into Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative. If successful, its businesses will help direct the flow of potentially hundreds of billions of dollars to some of the underdeveloped countries along the belt and road. Some of these deals will be done in highly corrupt, high-crime jurisdictions. How does Hong Kong’s law help guide our businesses during this supposed gold rush? What is the One Belt, One Road strategy all about? Most countries operating by the rule of... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1982168/one-belt-one-road-may-lead-way-social-justice-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1982168/one-belt-one-road-may-lead-way-social-justice-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:07:02 +0000 “I want real universal suffrage.” Is the phrase protected speech under the Basic Law? Does police discouragement of hanging the banner represent an un-Basic-Lawable (as the word unconstitutional clearly doesn’t apply) “restriction of freedom”? Or do hikers putting banners on Lion Rock pose a threat to national security? In short, the answer is both. The police camped near Lion Rock in an attempt to dissuade activists from putting up the same banner they put up during the umbrella movement. They... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1974449/letter-law-fine-line-hong-kong-between-freedom-speech-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1974449/letter-law-fine-line-hong-kong-between-freedom-speech-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Jun 2016 08:07:56 +0000 Hong Kong serves as a hub for the operations of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers leaks that revealed how the world’s wealthy store their money in secretive offshore investments. Almost 25 per cent of the firm’s clients originate from or through Hong Kong-based affiliates. HSBC alone has created more than 2,000 shell companies. The leaks unearthed the Panamanian firm’s connections to tycoons Li Ka-shing and the Kwok brothers, and even to Polytechnic University. Our... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1945700/hong-kong-must-work-towards-panama-papers-ordinance-end?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1945700/hong-kong-must-work-towards-panama-papers-ordinance-end?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 May 2016 12:45:30 +0000 Can and should the Hong Kong judiciary oversee the Legislative Council? Labour Party lawmakers want to put that question to the test. At the heart of the dispute lies a fundamental jurisprudential dilemma. Should the voice and will of the people regulate its own activity (and impose its own discipline)? Or should the judiciary provide checks and balances which prevent Legco descending into chaos. At the heart of the issue lies a supposedly improper Legco voting procedure which pushed... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1931319/letter-law-it-time-hong-kong-judiciary-oversee-legislative?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1931319/letter-law-it-time-hong-kong-judiciary-oversee-legislative?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 28 Mar 2016 08:00:15 +0000 Hongkongers will need to declare all their assets abroad by 2025. No, the government has not announced the policy yet. But academics have noticed a trend which strongly suggests Hong Kong will follow the US example in foreign tax compliance. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (Fatca) requires all US citizens and residents to report their assets abroad. The US government has co-opted foreign financial institutions to police the act for them. If foreign banks don’t give information to the US... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1913283/why-hong-kong-tax-compliance-act-may-be-closer-you-think?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1913283/why-hong-kong-tax-compliance-act-may-be-closer-you-think?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Feb 2016 08:00:45 +0000 In the early 1950s, the US version of Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal overturned decades of established law. The justices, deciding that the needs of the day superseded musty old words of the past, ruled that white and black children should study together. Its supreme justice - Earl Warren - became associated with a philosophy of chief justice-ing - now known as "judicial activism". Could last month's decision by Hong Kong's top court on the Yung Kee restaurant portend the start of an era of... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1888139/judicial-activism-and-famous-hong-kong-goose-restaurant?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1888139/judicial-activism-and-famous-hong-kong-goose-restaurant?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Dec 2015 15:04:19 +0000 Until the mid-2000s, Hong Kong's Prevention of Bribery Ordinance represented the gold standard for anti-corruption laws worldwide. The law criminalised bribery and other types of corruption. It also required government officials to declare their assets and provided reasonably tight definitions of corruption. Passed in the early 1970s, the ordinance and the law establishing the Independent Commission Against Corruption represented models copied around the world. For example, the World Bank sent... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1882409/letter-law-its-time-internationalise-hong-kongs-anti?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1882409/letter-law-its-time-internationalise-hong-kongs-anti?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 23 Nov 2015 16:20:29 +0000 Alumni of the University of Hong Kong have voted to kick out Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying as chancellor of the university. They made the right decision - on the wrong question. Section 12(3) of the University of Hong Kong Ordinance makes the chief executive the chancellor of the university. The question of Leung's chancellorship thus lies with the semi-democratically elected representatives of the people in the Legislative Council - not HKU's alumni. The ordinance harks back to the days of... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1862160/controversy-over-cy-leungs-university-hong-kong-chancellorship-begs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1862160/controversy-over-cy-leungs-university-hong-kong-chancellorship-begs?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 28 Sep 2015 16:00:00 +0000 I have a friend who protects me from myself. Mark rants every time I want to do something risky. He would rat on me in a second - if I wanted to do something truly unsavory. Mark is my whistle-blower. All of us have our own Mark - except Hong Kong's government bodies and companies. The city has no constitutional jurisprudence encouraging individuals to stand up to wrongdoing and cover-ups. Nor do we have a culture that encourages the Edward Snowdens among us to "do the right thing". Local law... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1848274/hong-kong-needs-whistle-blower-law-better-governance-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1848274/hong-kong-needs-whistle-blower-law-better-governance-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 10 Aug 2015 16:00:29 +0000 Policymakers and residents alike are still reeling from the results of recent attempts to reform the city's election laws. Yet, the yellow umbrellas, legislative clashes and endless debates miss the point. No matter how our public officials are elected or appointed, they can still act for some at the expense of many. Beneath the anti-corruption radar lies a web of personal relationships and influence trading that hurts us all. At the centre of that web lies a beast known as lobbying and the... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1838446/time-tackle-political-issues-lobbying-special-access-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1838446/time-tackle-political-issues-lobbying-special-access-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Jul 2015 19:12:10 +0000 Hong Kong lost the Alibaba initial public offering to the United States last year. Since that time, the government has been abuzz with talk of reforming the listing rules. A quick Google search on "weighted voting right structures" will reveal consultation documents by the Hong Kong stock exchange and Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Various law firms have also published opinions about allowing some companies' shareholders to cast more than one vote per share. Yet - as usual - these... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/1818973/alibaba-listing-slight-shouldnt-blind-hong-kong-cold-hard?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/1818973/alibaba-listing-slight-shouldnt-blind-hong-kong-cold-hard?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Jun 2015 18:38:03 +0000 Changes like the adoption of so-called “Twin Peaks” regulators, making the Financial Services Development Council a statutory body and integration with the Asean Capital Markets Forum could help Hong Kong weather future financial crises. Since 2008, Hong Kong has remained one of the few jurisdictions to avoid large-scale changes in its financial regulation. In the US, UK, Australia and across the EU, governments have radically changed the way their financial regulators work. Judging by... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1765656/hong-kong-needs-financial-reform-weather-future-financial-crises-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1765656/hong-kong-needs-financial-reform-weather-future-financial-crises-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Apr 2015 18:45:15 +0000 Should Hong Kong's law firms have the right to sell shares on the stock market? A debate is raging among scholars, lawmakers and lawyers themselves. Countries such as Australia have allowed a few law firms to list. Britain and the United States have debated for years ways of opening up their legal professions to competition and innovation. Why shouldn't retail investors have the right to share in lawyers' good fortune (and high fees)? In our recent paper in the Law Society journal, Hong Kong... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1733642/hong-kong-can-lead-way-taking-stock-law-firms?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1733642/hong-kong-can-lead-way-taking-stock-law-firms?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Mar 2015 16:33:44 +0000 American and European customers are alight with excitement. Recent changes in US law particularly allow customers to put solar panels on their houses and in their portfolios. While pundits debate the merits of solar energy, one incontrovertible fact remains: New York - and London, to a lesser extent - will remain solar finance hubs. However, because of Hong Kong laws, aspiring solar investors such as tycoon Cheng Kin-ming will remain the exception rather than the norm. A part of our financial... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1682482/letter-law-throwing-light-hks-lack-investment-solar-power?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1682482/letter-law-throwing-light-hks-lack-investment-solar-power?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:45:30 +0000