Market Related news: (Hong Kong)
Tuesday December 21, 6:42 am Eastern Time
HK's SFC says looking at waivers for Nasdaq scheme
HONG KONG, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) said on Tuesday it may grant waivers on some of Hong Kong's stock rules to the seven U.S. companies to be listed in Hong Kong under a Nasdaq pilot program.
``There are quite a lot of regulatory issues we have been looking at and working on with the stock exchange,' David Stannard, SFC executive director of corpoarte finance told a news briefing.
The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Ltd and the Nasdaq-Amex Market Group in New York announced earlier this month the listing of seven Nasdaq companies in Hong Kong as a pilot scheme, paving the way for co-listing of stocks in the two exchanges.
The stock exchange and SFC were in close discussion regarding waivers of Hong Kong stock regulations on issues that were already tightly governed by U.S. rules and regulations.
These would include the insider dealing provisions for the Securities (Insider Dealing) Ordinance and the Securities (Disclosure of Interests) Ordinance and the Takeover and Share Repurchase Code, a joint statement from the two exchanges said.
Stannard said the SFC was looking at the possiblity of granting waviers to rules such as disclosure interest ordinance and takeover and merger codes.
``The Disclosure of Interests Ordinance is something adequately covered in the U.S. I don't think we see any need to put up a duplication of regulation,' he said.
Stannard said the takeover and merger codes, which were focused on companies based and managed in Hong Kong, probably did not apply to big U.S. corporates which did not have businesses there.
However, Hong Kong rules on insider dealing and market manipulation probably would be applied to these companies.
``Insider dealing is a bad thing. Market manipulation, again, the law applies, there is no question about that,' he said.
Under the pilot program, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange will initially list seven top Nasdaq companies in February. They are Microsoft Corp (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news), Intel Corp (NasdaqNM:INTC - news), Dell Computer Corp (NasdaqNM:DELL - news), Cisco Systems (NasdaqNM:CSCO - news), Amgen Inc (NasdaqNM:AMGN - news), Applied Materials Inc (NasdaqNM:AMAT - news) and Starbucks Corp (NasdaqNM:SBUX - news).
Stannard said he believed the scheme would be a success.
``Overall we think it is going to be a good program, to be exciting and it improves Hong Kong. It is hopefully going to boost business in the stock exchange,' he added. |
