12 July 1989
一九八九年七月十二日
27
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
香港立法局
tribunal is best placed to decide on the facts of the case. This right will be without prejudice to the existing right of judicial review.
Fourthly, the Bill requires that sittings of the tribunal be held in public unless the tribunal considers that in the interests of justice, a sitting or any part thereof should be held in private. At present, the tribunal's proceedings are in private. We believe that it is in the wider public interest for proceedings to be held in public, as in the case of criminal and civil proceedings before a court of law.
Fifthly, the Bill empowers the tribunal to order a person found to have been involved in insider dealing to pay to Government such sums as it sees fit towards the expenses of the inquiry and any related investigation carried out by the tribunal. We consider it reasonable to require insider dealers to contribute towards the tribunal's expenses.
Let me now turn to the question of insider dealing in futures contracts. During the Second Reading debate on the Securities and Futures Commission Bill in April this year, Sir Piers JACOBS undertook to consider whether the Securities and Futures Commission's powers of investigation should be extended to cover insider dealing in futures contracts and to report back to this Council.
We have considered whether the Bill before this Council should also bring futures contracts within the scope of insider dealing. This question raises a number of technical issues which require very careful examination. First of all, the definition of "relevant information" for the purpose of insider dealing requires some attention. Should this relate to unpublished price-sensitive information about a corporation, an industrial sector, the political situation or the economy as a whole? Secondly, we have the problem of proof. What evidence is required to show a sufficient causal relationship between particular information and a material change or likely material change in the price of a futures contract? Thirdly, we have the question of scope. Should it embrace all financial futures or just stock index futures contracts?
These are not easy questions to answer. An indication of the difficulty involved is that futures contracts are not caught by the equivalent United States legislation and only caught in a very limited way, if at all, by the United Kingdom legislation as the relevant provisions have yet to be tested before the
courts.