The Hong Kong government has drafted a law that would limit acess to the personal details of company directors in boards of companies. This measure was opposed by unions, small businesses and journalists, yet will be implemented.
According to Bureau spokeswoman Shirley Wong, the Financial Services and Treasury Bureau has removed provisions that overhauled the current ordinance obscuring the residential addresses and full identification numbers of company directors. A new law passed made the information more transparent and this was removed by the government.
Critics of the changes deplored the possibility of being unable to scrutinize the directors and making it easier to launder money and cheat taxes. Unions have used the public information to chase after employers who run away from their obligations to theri employees while small businesses use the directory to conduct their due diligence.
According Gordon Jones, Hong Kong's Registrar of Companiues from 1993 to 2007, "In the fourteen years in which I was the Registrar of Comanies, I never received any complaints about these provisions or suggestions that they infringed on directors' privacy. I would hope however that these misconceived and bad legislative proposals are not only deferred but also repealed."
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