The aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse in Hong Kong : the saga, regulatory deficiencies and government responses

The paper examines the fallout of the Lehman Brothers collapse in Hong Kong. As an international financial hub in Asia, Hong Kong was profoundly affected by the collapse of this company. As a result, it impacted negatively on the public’s confidence in the Hong Kong’s banking sector. Furthermore, this event has exposed a number of regulatory deficiencies in Hong Kong. In response to this financial crisis, the Hong Kong government had made an unprecedented move to negotiate with local banks to refund the investors. In addition, the government has also sought public consultation on proposal to enhance the regulation of the sale of financial products. This paper argues that there needs to be amendments to the prevailing laws and the inclusions of legal rules to back up those proposed measures so that the disclosed information from the financial institution will not mislead the investors or misrepresent the products offered.

Associations among smoking status, lifestyle and lipoprotein subclasses

BACKGROUND: The relationship between cigarette smoking and cardiovascular disease is well established, yet the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Although smokers have a more atherogenic lipid profile, this may be mediated by other lifestyle-related factors. Analysis of lipoprotein subclasses by the use of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) may improve characterisation of lipoprotein abnormalities. OBJECTIVE: We used NMR spectroscopy to investigate the relationships between smoking status, lifestyle-related risk factors, and lipoproteins in a contemporary cohort. METHODS: A total of 612 participants (360 women) aged 40–69 years at baseline (199021994) enrolled in the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study had plasma lipoproteins measured with NMR. Data were analysed separately by sex. RESULTS: After adjusting for lifestyle-related risk factors, including alcohol and dietary intake, physical activity, and weight, mean total low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particle concentration was greater for female smokers than nonsmokers. Both medium- and small-LDL particle concentrations contributed to this difference. Total high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and large-HDL particle concentrations were lower for female smokers than nonsmokers. The proportion with low HDL particle number was greater for female smokers than nonsmokers. For men, there were few smoking-related differences in lipoprotein measures. CONCLUSION: Female smokers have a more atherogenic lipoprotein profile than nonsmokers. This difference is independent of other lifestyle-related risk factors. Lipoprotein profiles did not differ greatly between male smokers and nonsmokers.

Legislative proposals to codify directors' liability for insolvent trading in Hong Kong : a 10-year journey

Hong Kong is a modern global city with a reputation for well-regulated financial markets, but for years, the government had been trying to enact laws on corporate rescue procedures with relatively little success. It is under the pretext of the Global Financial Crisis, the threat of a future economic meltdown gave the Hong Kong government the impetus to revisit this issue. This third attempt to codify statutory obligations on directors’ liability for insolvent trading has been criticised for either setting the standards too high or low for directors trading whilst insolvent. There is also some reservation given the beliefs and values of directors in Chinese family-owned and controlled companies. These companies would most likely trade out the difficult times. Nevertheless, this does not negate from the fact that the enactment of corporate rescue procedures in Hong Kong in 2010 is a momentous achievement for the Hong Kong government.

The nature of caregiving in children of a parent with multiple sclerosis from multiple sources and the associations between caregiving activities and youth adjustment overtime

This study explored youth caregiving for a parent with multiple sclerosis (MS) from multiple perspectives, and examined associations between caregiving and child negative (behavioural emotional difficulties, somatisation) and positive (life satisfaction, positive affect, prosocial behaviour) adjustment outcomes overtime. A total of 88 families participated; 85 parents with MS, 55 partners and 130 children completed questionnaires at Time 1. Child caregiving was assessed by the Youth Activities of Caregiving Scale (YACS). Child and parent questionnaire data were collected at Time 1 and child data were collected 12 months later (Time 2). Factor analysis of the child and parent YACS data replicated the four factors (instrumental, social-emotional, personal-intimate, domestic-household care), all of which were psychometrically sound. The YACS factors were related to parental illness and caregiving context variables that reflected increased caregiving demands. The Time 1 instrumental and social-emotional care domains were associated with poorer Time 2 adjustment, whereas personal-intimate was related to better adjustment and domestic-household care was unrelated to adjustment. Children and their parents exhibited highest agreement on personal-intimate, instrumental and total caregiving, and least on domestic-household and social-emotional care. Findings delineate the key dimensions of young caregiving in MS and the differential links between caregiving activities and youth adjustment.

Assessment of commercial network RTK user positioning performance over long inter-station distances

The paper provides an assessment of the performance of commercial Real Time Kinematic (RTK) systems over longer than recommended inter-station distances. The experiments were set up to test and analyse solutions from the i-MAX, MAX and VRS systems being operated with three triangle shaped network cells, each having an average inter-station distance of 69km, 118km and 166km. The performance characteristics appraised included initialization success rate, initialization time, RTK position accuracy and availability, ambiguity resolution risk and RTK integrity risk in order to provide a wider perspective of the performance of the testing systems. ----- ----- The results showed that the performances of all network RTK solutions assessed were affected by the increase in the inter-station distances to similar degrees. The MAX solution achieved the highest initialization success rate of 96.6% on average, albeit with a longer initialisation time. Two VRS approaches achieved lower initialization success rate of 80% over the large triangle. In terms of RTK positioning accuracy after successful initialisation, the results indicated a good agreement between the actual error growth in both horizontal and vertical components and the accuracy specified in the RMS and part per million (ppm) values by the manufacturers. ----- ----- Additionally, the VRS approaches performed better than the MAX and i-MAX when being tested under the standard triangle network with a mean inter-station distance of 69km. However as the inter-station distance increases, the network RTK software may fail to generate VRS correction and then may turn to operate in the nearest single-base RTK (or RAW) mode. The position uncertainty reached beyond 2 meters occasionally, showing that the RTK rover software was using an incorrect ambiguity fixed solution to estimate the rover position rather than automatically dropping back to using an ambiguity float solution. Results identified that the risk of incorrectly resolving ambiguities reached 18%, 20%, 13% and 25% for i-MAX, MAX, Leica VRS and Trimble VRS respectively when operating over the large triangle network. Additionally, the Coordinate Quality indicator values given by the Leica GX1230 GG rover receiver tended to be over-optimistic and not functioning well with the identification of incorrectly fixed integer ambiguity solutions. In summary, this independent assessment has identified some problems and failures that can occur in all of the systems tested, especially when being pushed beyond the recommended limits. While such failures are expected, they can offer useful insights into where users should be wary and how manufacturers might improve their products. The results also demonstrate that integrity monitoring of RTK solutions is indeed necessary for precision applications, thus deserving serious attention from researchers and system providers.

From bricks to clicks : hybrid commercial spaces in the landscape of early literacy and learning

In their quest for resources to support children’s early literacy learning and development, parents encounter and traverse different spaces in which discourses and artifacts are produced and circulated. This paper uses conceptual tools from the field of geosemiotics to examine some commercial spaces designed for parents and children which foreground preschool learning and development. Drawing on data generated in a wider study I discuss some of the ways in which the material and virtual commercial spaces of a transnational shopping mall company and an educational toy company operate as sites of encounter between discourses and artifacts about children’s early learning and parents of preschoolers. I consider how companies connect with and ‘situate’ people as parents and customers, and then offer pathways designed for parents to follow as they attempt to meet their very young children’s learning and development needs. I argue that these pathways are both material and ideological, and that are increasingly tending to lead parents to the online commercial spaces of the world wide web. I show how companies are using the online environment and hybrid offline and online spaces and flows to reinforce an image of themselves as authoritative brokers of childhood resources for parents that is highly valuable in a policy climate which foregrounds lifelong learning and school readiness.

Commercial vulnerability of tenant : a special disadvantage?

The Full Federal Court has once again been called upon to explore the limits of s51AA of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) in the context of a retail tenancy between commercially experienced parties. The decision is Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Samton Holdings Pty Ltd [2002] FCA 62.

Can compensation be claimed under the standard commercial land and building contract where the property sold has no legally enforceable vehicular access?

This was the question that confronted Wilson J in Jarema Pty Ltd v Michihiko Kato [2004] QSC 451. Facts The plaintiff was the buyer of a commercial property at Bundall. The property comprised a 6 storey office building with a basement car park with 54 car parking spaces. The property was sold for $5 million with the contract being the standard REIQ/QLS form for Commercial Land and Buildings (2nd ed GST reprint). The contract provided for a “due diligence” period. During this period, the buyer’s solicitors discovered that there was no direct access from a public road to the car park entrance. Access to the car park was over a lot of which the Gold Coast City Council was the registered owner under a nomination of trustees, the Council holding the property on trust for car parking and town planning purposes. Due to the absence of a registered easement over the Council’s land, the buyer’s solicitors sought a reduction in the purchase price. The seller would not agree to this. Finally the sale was completed with the buyer reserving its rights to seek compensation.

Characteristics of utility cyclists in Queensland, Australia : an examination of the associations between individual, social and environmental factors and utility cycling

Background: Initiatives to promote utility cycling in countries like Australia and the US, which have low rates of utility cycling, may be more effective if they first target recreational cyclists. This study aimed to describe patterns of utility cycling and examine its correlates, among cyclists in Queensland, Australia. Methods: An online survey was administered to adult members of a state-based cycling community and advocacy group (n=1813). The survey asked about demographic characteristics and cycling behavior, motivators and constraints. Utility cycling patterns were described, and logistic regression modeling was used to examine associations between utility cycling and other variables. Results: Forty-seven percent of respondents reported utility cycling: most did so to commute (86%). Most journeys (83%) were >5 km. Being male, younger, employed full-time, or university-educated increased the likelihood of utility cycling (p<0.05). Perceiving cycling to be a cheap or a convenient form of transport were associated with utility cycling (p<0.05). Conclusions: The moderate rate of utility cycling among recreational cyclists highlights a potential to promote utility cycling among this group. To increase utility cycling, strategies should target female and older recreational cyclists and focus on making cycling a cheap and convenient mode of transport.

The source of the good faith obligation in the performance and enforcement of commercial contracts

There are many issues associated with good faith that will ultimately confront the Australian High Court and a number of these have been well canvassed. However, one significant issue has attracted relatively little comment. To date, a number of Australian courts (lower in the judicial hierarchy) have been prepared to hold directly, tacitly accept or assume (without making a final determination) that good faith is implied (as a matter of law) in the performance and enforcement of a very broad class of contract, namely commercial contracts per se. This broad approach is demonstrated in decisions from the Federal Court, the New South Wales Court of Appeal, the Supreme Courts of Victoria and Western Australia and has crept into pleadings in commercial matters in Queensland

Acquire a practical overview of 'good faith' in commercial contracting

The twists and turns in the ongoing development of the implied common law good faith obligation in the commercial contractual arena continue to prove fertile academic ground. Despite a lack of guidance from the High Court, the lower courts have been besieged by claims based, in part, on the implied obligation. Although lower court authority is lacking consistency and the ‘decisions in which lower courts have recognised the legitimacy of implication of a term of good faith vary in their suggested rationales’, the implied obligation may provide some comfort to a party to ‘at least some commercial contracts’ faced with a contractual counterpart exhibiting symptoms of bad faith.

The level and quality of Value-at-Risk disclosure by commercial banks

In this paper we study both the level of Value-at-Risk (VaR) disclosure and the accuracy of the disclosed VaR figures for a sample of US and international commercial banks. To measure the level of VaR disclosures, we develop a VaR Disclosure Index that captures many different facets of market risk disclosure. Using panel data over the period 1996–2005, we find an overall upward trend in the quantity of information released to the public. We also find that Historical Simulation is by far the most popular VaR method. We assess the accuracy of VaR figures by studying the number of VaR exceedances and whether actual daily VaRs contain information about the volatility of subsequent trading revenues. Unlike the level of VaR disclosure, the quality of VaR disclosure shows no sign of improvement over time. We find that VaR computed using Historical Simulation contains very little information about future volatility.