Hong Kong Securities And Futures Commission And China Securities Regulatory Commission Hold High-Level Enforcement Cooperation Meeting And Joint Training

The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) recently held the 12th regular high-level meeting on enforcement cooperation (Note 1).

At the meeting, the SFC and the CSRC had open, comprehensive and constructive communication and reached consensuses on a number of important issues.  These included enhancing the enforcement cooperation mechanism and its efficiency, refining mutual assistance in investigations, ensuring timely response to challenges arising from increasingly serious and complex cross-boundary securities frauds, safeguarding the interest of investors and the sound operation of both markets. 

In addition to briefing each other on their respective enforcement work and the significant progress and features of their enforcement cooperation so far this year, both the SFC and the CSRC summarised some significant achievements in cross-boundary enforcement cooperation over the past few years and conducted in-depth discussions on issues related to cross-boundary enforcement cooperation, including:

• cooperation on major and urgent cross-boundary cases;
• potential improvement to the cooperation mechanism for collecting and handling of evidence;
• sharing the experience of the implementation and successful cases of the special representative action mechanism in the Mainland; and         
• arrangements to enhance exchanges and joint training in view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Separately, the SFC and the CSRC jointly held an online training session last month, which was joined by more than 130 enforcement officers from the SFC and more than 420 enforcement officers from the CSRC and its regional offices (Note 2).

The joint training session covered a wide range of issues, including sharing experiences on investigations into intermediary misconduct, frauds and disclosure offences by listed companies and market manipulation.  The SFC and the CSRC also laid a solid foundation for cooperation in combating cross-boundary securities offences by sharing their experiences on cases where they worked closely with other local enforcement agencies.

“The enforcement units of the SFC and the CSRC have become strong and trusted partners following years of hard work and very close and solid cross-boundary enforcement cooperation mechanism.  In addition to supporting each other on many important cases, our joint effort resulted in resolving a number of significant policy challenges to our enforcement cooperation,” said Mr Thomas Atkinson, the SFC’s Executive Director of Enforcement. 

“We are grateful to the CSRC for its consistent and full support and cooperation over the years.  We also look forward to continuing to expand and deepen our close cooperative relationship with the CSRC, particularly exploring new modes and methods of cooperation to deter cross-boundary securities offences and to safeguard the long-term development of both markets,” Mr Atkinson added.

Notes:

1. Due to continuous situations of COVID-19, the high-level meeting was held online.
2. This was the fifth time in recent years for the enforcement units of the two regulators to organise such event and the first joint training held online.