By Stephen Briscoe Our previous posts have focused on the proposed changes to Hong Kong’s insolvency regime which are scheduled to come before LegCo in the next few months. This post is going to look at the “darker side”, (no, not Kowloon) to use the Star Wars metaphor; i.e. what is missing from the proposals;…
Continue ReadingWinding Up – Moving Colonial Legislation into the New Century
By Stephen Briscoe The existing provisions dealing with the winding-up of companies in Hong Kong are still largely based on the 1948 Companies Act from the UK. Of course, there have been changes over the years, but generally these haven’t been material and so we continue to use the legislation first enacted almost 70 years…
Continue ReadingSmall Practitioners – Stealing a Marketing March
By Stephen Briscoe This article is reprinted with permission from INSOL World magazine This is the first of two articles written from the perspective of a small firm practitioner working in a close-knit, but highly competitive market. It is a fact of life that smaller firms do not have the financial “clout” to challenge their larger competitors, particularly when it…
Continue ReadingHong Kong’s Provisional Supervision Plans, in Plain English
By Stephen Briscoe Hong Kong’s proposed new legislation on Provisional Supervision and Insolvent Trading has been in the pipeline for the last 20 years or so but before groaning “Oh no, not again,” this time there seems to be a genuine will on the part of the Administration to press ahead with bringing it back…
Continue ReadingNew Companies Ordinance Winding Up and Insolvency Conclusions Published
As most of you are aware, earlier this year the new Companies Ordinance came into force. At that time the parts of the old Companies Ordinance that had not been amended, effectively s.166 onwards, were renamed as The Companies (Winding-up and Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance – just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it?? Following a period…
Continue ReadingUpdating the Companies Ordinance
A Missed Opportunity Republished with permission. This article first appeared in INSOL World magazine Q4 2013 By: Stephen Briscoe and Nichole Chan, BWA Hong Kong’s efforts to modernize the city’s corporate insolvency laws have resurfaced almost two decades after the city government first launched a comprehensive review of the legislation in the mid-90s, but then…
Continue ReadingProtection of Wages on Insolvency Fund (Update 2)
The long awaited changes to Hong Kong’s Protection of Wages on Insolvency Fund (PWIF) have moved one step closer to becoming law. As we explained on 18 October 2011, (read here), the changes will now allow employees to claim from the PWIF up to HK$10,500 in respect of unpaid holiday pay. Previously employees could only…
Continue ReadingRegulating Order Obtained in Yu Kee Food Company Limited
(In Compulsory Liquidation) Following the winding-up of the Company on 29 August 2011, Nichole Chan and Stephen Briscoe were appointed joint and several liquidators of the Company on 26 October 2011. This appointment was made by way of a Regulating Order pursuant to s.227A of the Companies Ordinance. A committee of inspection was also appointed…
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