Money Laundering
The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal
(CFA) dismissed Carson Yeung’s (owner of Birmingham City football club) appeal
against his conviction for “money laundering”, contrary to Section 25(1) of the
Organised and Serious Crime Ordinance (OSCO). Essentially, the case establishes
that a money laundering offence could occur even if the funds were in fact
clean, if the accused should have suspected that they were the proceeds
of crime. In other words, the essence of the offence is intention (mens rea) rather than facts (actus reus).
Part of the rationale for this is
the difficulty in sophisticated money laundering schemes of proving the tainted
nature of the funds. Some people may be troubled by the idea that, if you can’t
prove the underlying offence then you should just assume it.
The Hong Kong government announced
that it will join the OECD as an Associate in the BEPS (base erosion and profit
shifting) project, thereby committing to the 4 minimum standards of:
(i) countering harmful tax
practices;
(ii) preventing treaty abuse;
(iii) transfer pricing documentation
in respect of country-by-country reporting requirements; and
(iv) making dispute resolution
mechanisms more effective.
Employment
The government announced that it was unlikely that the proposed changes
to the employment legislation would be passed in the current term of the
Legislative Council. The key change proposed is to allow the Labour Tribunal to
make an order for reinstatement of an employee without the consent of
the employer. As proposed, an employer would have an alternative (to
reinstatement) of paying the employee a maximum of three times the employee's
average monthly wages (capped at HK$50,000), exclusive of other existing
remedies.
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Primasia will post the updates of Hong Kong and China from time to time. Follow us on our Website/ Blogger/ LinkedIn and stay tunned for our updates!
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