On 28 April 2023, the Occupational Safety and Occupational Health Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance 2023 took effect upon gazettal. Employers who breach the statutory occupational safety and health requirements in Hong Kong will now be subject to significantly higher fines and imprisonment for up to two years.

Regulators around the world are seeking to strengthen governance frameworks to deter and prevent the perpetuation of employee misconduct and to stem the “rolling of bad apples.”

In this webinar recording, Eunice Tan and Grace Fung from our financial services regulatory team, and Zhao Yang Ng and Sonia Wong from our employment and compensation team discuss and analyze regulatory developments proposed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in meeting these objectives.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) recently released its Consultation Conclusions Paper (“Consultation Conclusions”) on Implementation of Mandatory Reference Checking Scheme (“MRC Scheme”) to Address the “Rolling Bad Apples” Phenomenon.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority recently released its Consultation Conclusions Paper on Implementation of Mandatory Reference Checking Scheme to Address the “Rolling Bad Apples” Phenomenon. Baker McKenzie lawyers discuss the key aspects of the Consultation Conclusions and the employment ramifications.

The Hong Kong government recently announced that three types of COVID-19 vaccines will be available for the city’s residents, raising hopes of things returning to business-as-usual in the not too distant future. While the specifics of the vaccine rollout are still unknown, employers have many questions on what this means in practice. Issues include how the vaccine can be used to protect workforces as well as an understanding of employer responsibilities in relation to the offering of vaccines to employees.

Digital transformation is not only about technology, it is about bringing together the power of technology with a culture that embraces the change and demands placed on the organizations by its customers. It enables the organization to continually transform and innovate to simultaneously drive and respond to the shifting demands…

Our Hong Kong and China employment teams covered important changes and trends in employment law over the past year. Hong Kong Topics under the employment legislative update include maternity leave, updates to anti-discrimination legislation, statutory holidays, MPF setoff and immigration updates. The team also shared some case studies and discussed…

A recent High Court decision in Yung Wai Tak Abraham William v. Natural Dairy (Nz) Holdings Ltd (in Provisional Liquidation) (17/08/2020, HCLA26/2018) [2020] HKCFI 2067 (“Decision”) held that a Hong Kong listed company and its wholly owned subsidiary were joint employers of the appellant whose main job was to serve the listed company as its company secretary, notwithstanding that the written employment contract was solely made with the subsidiary. The parent company was held liable for, inter alia, unpaid wages, statutory severance payment and payment in lieu of notice owed to the appellant by the subsidiary. In coming to its conclusion, the court applied the “overall impression” test set down by the Court of Final Appeal in Poon Chau Nam v Yim Siu Cheung,1 taking into account all relevant features of the parties’ relationship, including the proper interpretation of the written employment contract, the recruitment process, the services provided by the employee to the companies involved, the employer’s confession, and other contemporaneous documentary evidence.

In brief Hong Kong was one of the earliest cities to be impacted by COVID-19 and is now coming out of its second wave of COVID-19 cases. In a bid to ‘flatten the curve’ of the rising number of cases arising from the second wave, at the end of March,…

The World Health Organization has now declared the coronavirus outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. As a result, employers are taking stock of their duties and considering how this might affect their businesses. We set out below the responses to some frequently asked questions: What are an employer’s…