A proposal to limit public access to government information on Hong Kong business registrations will make it hard for estate agents to comply with regulations and add risks to property buyers, an industry leader has said.

Estate agents were required to verify the ownership when listing a property, according to regulations set out by the Estate Agents Authority, said Louis Chan, Asia-Pacific vice-chairperson of Centaline Property Agency.

The government’s plan to keep certain personal details held by the Companies Registry from members of the public would limit agents’ ability to comply, he said, explaining that they would have to check with the registry if a property was owned by a company.

“We are not sure how we would be able to adhere to the regulations in the future,” Chan said.

The risk of a property purchase would also be heightened as the seller might be a con artist pretending to be transacting on behalf of a company when the identity of the real owner could not be ascertained.

“How difficult is it to counterfeit a company stamp?” he asked. “Even a business registration certificate can be fabricated.”

Currently, members of the public can view the home addresses and identification numbers of company directors on the registry. Under the planned change, only the correspondence address and part of the identification number would be visible.

The aim was to “protect personal data,” a document submitted by the government to the Legislative Council showed. Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday that it was meant to prevent the “weaponization” of personal details and to combat false information and hate speech online.

Former accountancy lawmaker Kenneth Leung said the measure would affect auditing work and the buying and merging of companies as many directors could share the same name.

Leung said the proposal would affect Hong Kong’s attractiveness to foreign businesses.

Danny Chan, convenor of the Investor Interest Concern Group, said the rights of retail investors were also at stake as the restriction would make it more difficult to look up information of major shareholders in the companies where they were holding shares.

A lack of provisions for journalists to gain access to the information would also limit the media’s ability to expose companies’ wrongdoings, he said.

Click here for Chinese version

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play