Latest Legislative Developments

Amendments to Insurance Companies Ordinance introduced by Financial Reporting Council Ordinance

The Financial Reporting Council Ordinance, gazetted on 21 July 2006, provides for the establishment of a Financial Reporting Council (ˇ§FRCˇ¨), the main tasks of which are to investigate irregularities of auditors of listed entities and to make enquiries into financial reports of such entities to help ensure that they comply with the relevant legal, accounting and regulatory requirements. It also introduces consequential amendments to the secrecy provisions of the Insurance Companies Ordinance (Cap.41) (ˇ§ICOˇ¨).

Under the consequential amendments to the ICO, the FRC is added to the list of ˇ§authorized statutory officeˇ¨ under section 53A(3B) of the ICO so that the Insurance Authority is allowed to disclose information to the FRC if the disclosure is desirable in the policy holdersˇ¦ or public interest; or the disclosure will assist the FRC to exercise its functions and is not contrary to the policy holdersˇ¦ or public interest.

The consequential amendments to the ICO came into operation on 1 December 2006.