The purpose of the present study is to investigate the CG framework in Hong Kong and to make recommendations as to how it may be further developed to improve the long term competitiveness of the Hong Kong public market.
To this end, the study has researched four overseas jurisdictions - the United Kingdom (UK), the United States, Mainland China and Singapore. Examining the developments and experiences, both successes and failures, in these other markets enables a comparative analysis of Hong Kong's strengths and weaknesses. A central premise of the analysis is that the broad historical, legal and cultural contexts of each of these five markets are different, which implies that merely supplanting aspects of Hong Kong's CG system with those from another may not work to produce the same outcomes - what was successful in another jurisdiction may fail in Hong Kong, and vice versa.
Of particular interest to this study are shareholder rights, remedies and protections and board processes within the context of public listed companies. The regulatory oversight of listed companies in Hong Kong is therefore relevant to consider, including the many listed companies that are not incorporated in Hong Kong that present special issues as regards the legal standing of CG standards and their enforcement.