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Financial Markets in Hong Kong: Law and Practice Berry F.C. Hsu, Douglas Arner, Maurice K.S. Tse & Syren Johnstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
Financial Markets in Hong Kong: LLIW and Practice is the first book of this kind in Hong Kong in the area of financial law written for academics and practitioners. Four major Hong Kong experts in this field authored it. The book provides a theoretical analysis of "financial law" together with a detailed examination of its practical substance by emphasizing the institutional and legal interrelationships, and links between the different sets of rules. The authors write with clarity and precision about the complex regulations that make up Hong Kong's financial law and practice. This book should become a Hong Kong classic. It is also particularly well-timed, coinciding with the publication of the World Bank's report on East Asian Finance The Road to Robust Markets (2006), with which two of the book's authors were themselves involved.
The term "financial law" is ambiguous, and nowhere specifically defined in case law or legislation in Hong Kong or other jurisdictions. Financial law covers a plethora of intertwined regulation concerning securities supervision law, capital markets regulation, stock exchange governance and the law of investment. As the authors explain:
A properly constituted market operates under a set of rules within an institutional framework. As a matter of practiee, a financial market includes both money markets and capital markets. The former concentrates on short-term claims and debt instruments and the latter trade in long -term debts and equity instruments (p. 17).
In analyzing financial law, the book also acknowledges the business structure, trade practices and culture of Hong Kong. Further, the authors even discuss the counterpart legal and regulatory framework in mainland China, in what the authors describe as the "opportunities" provided by the China nexus.
The book has four parts. The first canvasses the framework of Hong Kong's financial markets and its financial regulation. Part 2 analyzes the particular laws and regulations in greater detail. Part 3 discusses corporate governance and market conduct, with emphasis on the legal framework governing market misconduct such as insider trading, fraud and deception. The final part puts Hong Kong's financial law and practice in an international context, with an assessment of...