News & Insights

SFC licensing and compliance hints – Nov 2017

What is the next step after receiving declarations / disclosures? File away?

Regulated entities require staff members to make declarations / disclosures to the company regarding a wide variety of information on an on-going basis. The job for compliance staff is not just to chase staff members to submit their declarations / disclosures on time and then file the piece of paper away. In addition, someone with appropriate experience and authority in the compliance department needs to go through each declaration / disclosure to check whether a notification needs to be made to a regulator or other third party, and to ensure that any actual / or potential conflicts of interest or other potential issues are identified so that appropriate action can be taken. It may also be necessary to involve senior management.

When should one be a licensed representative or a responsible officer?

When an individual wants to conduct regulated activities in Hong Kong, s/he can be licensed either as a “licensed representative” only or as a “responsible officer”. A responsible officer assumes greater responsibilities and has more authority than a representative as s/he is also involved in supervising the regulated activities of the company. Accordingly, the experience and qualifications requirements for responsible officers are significantly more onerous than for representatives. If the individual is a member of the board of directors and carries on or supervises regulated activities, s/he is an “executive director” and must be licensed as a responsible officer. A licensed company is required to have at least two responsible officers per regulated activity and one of them must be an executive director. Details of experience and qualification requirements for a “licensed representative” and a “responsible officer” are set out in the Guidelines on Competence, available here.

Related Services and Sectors:

Investment Funds, Regulatory

Portfolio Builder

Select the legal services that you would like to download or add to the portfolio

Download    Add to portfolio   
Portfolio
Title Type CV Email

Remove All

Download


Click here to share this shortlist.
(It will expire after 30 days.)