Thursday 8th October 2009

Dear Reader,

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NEW ARTICLE
Post-service Employment of Civil Servants
Watching the Leung Chin Man case, we discovered that the not-so-public register of approved employment of ex-senior civil servants is only available offline, and entries are "unpublished" as soon as people quit. This must be the only government in the world which tries to make official secrets out of public documents rather than vice versa. To improve transparency, we are now putting the register online, along with annual reports of the advisory committee from 1990 to 2003.

RECENT ARTICLES
Tack Hsin's secret subscriber (7-Oct-09)
We look at restaurant operator Tack Hsin's moves to put itself in play, and peer again into the gaping hole in Hong Kong's Listing Rules which permits the people involved in deals with listed companies to remain anonymous. Hong Kong is building its reputation as a sunny place for shady people.

SDI breaches go dark at SFC (6-Oct-09)
The SFC has quietly stopped disclosing details of successful prosecutions for failure to disclose shareholdings, including the name of the offender and the company involved. This is important information for investors, and we urge them to reinstate it. We also look at its questionable and inconsistent policy of redacting names from historic press releases.

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