PCCW Vote Rigging
This house hopes that the SFC will investigate thoroughly the alleged vote-rigging activity in the recent privatisation deal and tender a detailed report of what happened. Clearly so many new holders with voting rights, many of which were Fortis insurance agents, suddenly coming into the equation just ahead of the privatisation proposal would recommend something abnormal going on.
It’s about time SFC actually did something useful with itself; the debacle with the Lehman Brothers Minibonds was essentially to do with SFC not having carried out proper risk assessment of financial products and this house sincerely hopes that a plausible explanation will become of the PCCW vote-rigging investigation.
Tags: fortis, pccw, privatisation, privatization, richard li, rigging, vote, vote-rigging
March 25th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
The deal is now allowed to go ahead - even though the SFC have not completed their assessment and thus far have found much suspicious activites around the deal.
Quoting the SCMP on 18 March, 2009
“The inquiry by the Securities and Futures Commission into the HK$15.9 billion deal, proposed by PCCW’s controlling shareholders - Richard Li Tzar-kai’s Pacific Century Regional Developments (PCRD) and mainland telecommunications giant China Unicom (SEHK: 0762, announcements, news) Group - is turning out to be more complex than expected.
Sources familiar with the situation said that besides the original vote-rigging allegations, the SFC was investigating whether anyone had made false statements or given misleading information to the stock market and the regulator about the deal.”
March 29th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Hong Kong people are all fickle; just yesterday Li Ka Shing came out and told everyone to buy homes after Hutchison posted 44 percent drop in profits due to slumping property prices….. and people take him seriously… that’s how screwed up Hong Kong is.
Hong Kong people deserve to be screwed over because they all behave like sheep and remain silent when affronted.
April 6th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
The High Court has now approved the privatization. People must remember that Li Ka-Shing and his sons rule Hong Kong…. Nobody is doing anything to oppose the deal??
April 8th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
With reference to the article titled “PCCW buyout saga opens can of worms” by Neil Gough and Enoch Yiu published on 8 April, 2009.
The article attempts to present Richard Li as the victim, someone who tried to privatise PCCW and was up against everyone in Hong Kong and Beijing trying to thwarte his aspirations. It further mentions that him and his cohorts were completely above board in all their actions with the logic that votes were split to enable the vote rigging and because vote splitting is legal therefore vote rigging must also be legal.
The article fails to mention that votes were split and then given to agents to vote in accordance to Richard Li and his cohorts’ devices - this constitutes bribery. (”Bribery”, a form of pecuniary corruption, is an act implying money or gift given that alters the behaviour of the recipient). Furthermore, some legal experts may regard Richard Li and his cohorts’ actions as duress because the insurance agents who voted favourably to the deal were subordinates of the person (Lam Hau-wah) who offered them the shares.
We know that in most democracies electoral bribery is illegal so should the vote-rigging shenanigans in the PCCW deal therefore also be illegal?
April 13th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
First and foremost, the culprits involved with the vote-rigging should be tried under the criminal court for Bribery.
The privatisation deal should be suspended until SFC have completed a thorough investigation into the vote-rigging activities.
And lastly, why aren’t the democrats complaining about this deal being approved? The fact that this is approved is like declaring that Hong Kong doesn’t have a legal system.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:58 pm
The SFC seem to be doing a lot… they’ve appealed the ruling and have now presented a lot of evidence detailing how Richard Li and the boys used underhanded ways to squeeze out small investors…
May 13th, 2009 at 6:00 am
PCCW Vote Rigging/ Conspiracy to defraud
Suppose
(a) The Court has accepted that the PCCW Board of Directors has lawfully and proeprly decided it is in the general interest of the Company and the shareholders as a whole that the company shsould be privatised;
(b) the minority shareholders have all been given a fair price for privatisation,
Question
(a) even if there is vote rigging, how the interest of the minority shareholders has been advwersely affected;
(b) If the interest of the minority shareholders has indeed been adversely affected by vote -rigging, whether the parties implicated in the voter -rigging should be prosecuted for common law conspiracy to defraud
September 28th, 2011 at 1:21 pm
It’s spkooy how clever some ppl are. Thanks!