269
A BILL
ENTITLED
An Ordinance to establish Registered Partner- ships and to give effect to certain Chinese Partnership Customs.
Be it enacted by the Governor of Hongkong, with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council thereof, as follows:-
1. This Ordinance may be cited as the Registered Short title. Partnerships Ordinance, 1911.
2. In the construction of this Ordinance the following Interpreta- words and expressions shall have the meanings respectively tion of assigned to them in this section, unless there be something terms. in the subject or context repugnant to such construction:-
"Firm", "firm name”, and “basiness" have the same Ordinance meanings as in the Partnership Ordinance, 1897.
Registered Partner" shall mean any partner who is registered as such under this Ordinance.
No. 1 of 1897.
Ordinance
Registrar of Companies" shall mean the officer appointed for the registration of Companies under the No. 1 of Companies Ordinance, 1865, or any Ordinance amending 1865. the same.
"The Court" shall mean the Supreme Court.
"Full name" shall, in the ease of a person who carries on business in more than one name, include all the names in which such person carries on business, and in the case of persons with Chinese names or of Chinese origin shall include the first name given after birth and the place of origin.
"Hung Kú shareholder" means the person who is registered as such in a registered partnership and who holds a hung kú (IB) or red share, and is a person who is entitled to no interest on capital, but who shares with the partners the surplus profit after interest on capital has been paid.
3.-(1.) From and after the commencement of this Definition Ordinance registered partnerships may be formed in the and con- mauver and subject to the conditions by this Ordinance stitution of provided.
(2.) A registered partnership shall not consist of more than twenty persons, at least one of whom must be regis- tered as a registered partner.
(3.) Firms or family Fongs may be registered as regis- tered partners in a registered partnership, provided that n firm or family fong registered as a registered partner shall be regarded so far as the registered partnership is concerned as one person, and provided also that a partner in the firm or a member of the tong is registered as a represen- tative of the firm or tong in the registered partnership, and provided also that no person may he registered as a repre- sentative of a firm or tong unless the Registrar of Companies is satisfied that be bas the authority of the other members of his firm or foug to be registered as a representative of them in the registered partnership, and unless one week shall have elapsed since an announcement of his intention to apply for registration as a representative of the firm or fong in question shall have been published in the Gazette and in two Chinese daily newspapers circulating in the Colony.
(4.) Bodies corporate may be registered as partners in a registered partnership.
limited
partnership.
4.—(1.) The liability of a registered partnership, which Limitation may sue and be sued in its registered name, shall be un- of liability limited, provided that no registered partner shall be liable of registered
partners. to pay out of such assets as he possesses, unconnected with the registered partnership, more than such porportion of a debt of the registered partnership as his interest in the registered partnership bears to the total interest of all the partners, whether registered or unregistered in the regis-