HKICPA Watch

As a service to our readers, we try to track on this page disciplinary investigations by the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants, formerly known as the Hong Kong Society of Accountants. By law, the existence of their investigations is secret, so it is rather like looking at a black hole, but like black holes, you can tell from activities surrounding them that they are there - in this case, court actions from various accounting firms trying to stop the investigations. In 1998, the SEHK referred 11 unnamed cases of alleged false accounting to the HKICPA for action. None has resulted in any public sanction, nor have other cases since then.

So here is an incomplete list of cases which have been referred by various parties (often, the Stock Exchange) to the HKICPA for investigation, and the approximate dates. In each case, we have no way of knowing whether it was concluded without action, or is still pending.

Note that with effect from 16-Jul-07, any new cases are first investigated by the Government-appointed Financial Reporting Council, and then any auditing or reporting irregularities are referred back to the HKICPA for possible disciplinary action.

Click on the link to take you to the company page on Webb-site.com, which includes links to relevant court cases.

In addition to the above, we are aware of the following cases which involved allegations of false accounting by the companies, which extended through an audit date, which in our opinion ought to be investigated by the HKICPA if they have not already done so: