CO129-354 - Public Offices & Others - 1908 — Page 31

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Extract from a Report from the Acting Crown

Advocate at Shanghai, dated 22nd February, 1907, JUN OS

It will I think assist the proper under- standing of this question if I first state how it has come about that the Shanghai Gas Company Ltd., which is entirely a Shanghai Company, is registered under the Companies Ordinances of Hongkong. In the early da s of Shanghai (that is to say in or before the middle of the last century) a company could not be registered with limited liability within the British dominions

and it was the practice for persons desirous of en-

gaging in enterprises like that of the Gas Company

which required a good deal of capital to constitute

themselves an Association under Deed of Sestlement.

Nearly all such undertakings in Shanghai car ied on

business under the provisions of Deeds of Settlement. Thirty years ago (in 1875) I understand that the late

Sir Richard Rennie (afterwards Chief Justice of HM.

Supreme Court for China and Japan) was concerned in

an attempt to get an Order in Council passed providing

for the registration of Limited Liability Companies

in Shanghai and that a Draft Order in Council was ac-

cordingly prepared, but that for some reason or other

the scheme fell through. The Hongkong Government how- ever having in 1865 passed an Ordinance enabling com- panies to be registered as Limited Liability Companies in the Colony, advantage was gradually taren of that Ordinance by the various undertakings in Shanghai and within the last twelve years all of the so-called "companies" here which used to carry on business under

Deeds

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