TNAG-2378-FCO40-3457-Hong-Kong-nationality-British-Nationality-(Hong-Kong)-Act-19-1991 — Page 143

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From:

Paul Fifoot

Legal Advisers

Date: 24 January 1991

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PS/Lord Caithness

Mr McLaren

Mr Burns

BRITISH NATIONALITY (HONG KONG) ACT: BRITISH UNDERTAKINGS

1.

I have two qualifications to the submission of 24 January. These relates to the first sentence of paragraph 5 and paragraph 5(d).

2. On the first point I have, of course, little or no knowledge of the facts stated in the various lists and my only comments, therefore, go to the structure of those lists.

3. Secondly, with regard to lists C and D, a company does not qualify as a British citizen or UK registered company (as distinct from having a British connection) by virtue of being included in the first columns of list C or list D. Accordingly, merely being included in those columns does not put that company in the category of companies whose equity holdings or management status could contribute to the qualifications which would make other companies eligible for inclusion in list C or list D. It would, therefore, be best if those subsidiaries whose entitlement was to be treated as a British undertaking (paragraph 5(d)) were listed or described in a separate list rather than in a footnote to list D. In this connection, too, it would be better if the last two lines of the proposed footnote (which I would suggest should form the chapeau to a new list) read "Company has effective control over a group of companies, companies within the group over which it has such control have also been included as British".

4.

When the lists are approved, it will be highly desirable to draw up for our own and Hong Kong's use a more definitive version of the various criteria which have now been evolved. We should not, for the future, rely upon the provisional list in our telno 1625 of 4 September 1990.

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Paul Fifoot