(Revised)
SPEECH BY THE HONOURABLE FINANCIAL SECRETARY IN LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL: WEDNESDAY 20 JANUARY 1988
Second Reading of Bills
K
COMPANIES (AMENDMENT) BILL 1988
The FINANCIAL SECRETARY moved the Second Reading of: 'A Bill to amend the Companies Ordinance'.
Sir,
I move that the Companies (Amendment) Bill 1988
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be read a second time.
?
The purpose of this Bill is to amend section
161B of the Companies Ordinance in order to exempt
authorised financial institutions from the requirement to
disclose in their annual accounts details of loans on
normal commercial terms to individual directors and other
officers. Instead, such details will be made available
for public inspection for 14 days prior to an
institution's annual general meeting and for seven days
thereafter.
3.
Section 161B of the Companies Ordinance requires
every company incorporated in Hong Kong to set out in its
annual accounts detailed information concerning loans made
by the company to any of its directors and other officers
of the company, or to any company controlled by any of its
directors. Authorised financial institutions, which mean
in this context banks or deposit-taking companies licensed
or registered under the Banking Ordinance, are also
subject to this requirement. By the very nature of
banking business, loans to bank directors and other
officers of banks are not uncommon, nor are loans to
companies controlled by these directors.