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Companies (Amendment) Bill 1995: committee stage amendment

Following are the speeches by the Secretary for Financial Services, Mr Michael Cartland, in moving the committee stage amendment of the Companies (Amendment) Bill 1995 in the Legislative Council today (Thursday):

Clauses 1 to 23.

Mr Chairman,

I move that the clauses specified be amended as in the paper circulated to Members.

Firstly, amendments are moved to introduce a Chinese text of all of the 23 clauses in the Bill. Following gazettal of the authentic Chinese text of the Companies Ordinance on 14 July 1995, it is now also necessary to provide an authentic Chinese text for the present Bill.

Secondly, clause 15(e) is amended to clarify the exclusion of term deposits fixed for more than five years from the preferential payment. When a term deposit is renewed, the new term agreed by the depositor and the banks will be considered for the purpose of this section.

It is intended that clause 15 will be brought into effect upon gazettal of the legislation and that the remaining clauses, which provide for the use of either Chinese or English under various provisions of the Ordinance, will be implemented towards the end of the year, following completion of the changes required to systems and procedures in the Companies Registry to accommodate the new arrangements. These include, having appropriately designed forms, in both English and Chinese.

Mr Chairman, I should like to thank Members, who scrutinised the Bill very carefully although no Bills Committee was formed. In particular, the Honourable Marvin Cheung has made constructive comments with regard to clause 15.

Mr Chairman, I beg to move.