Bøger af Mark (Hong Kong Polytechnic University) Williams

This book examines systematically the current systems of secured lending in China and Hong Kong, where companies or individuals offer personal property as security for credit advanced by a lender. Valid and enforceable security reduces the risk to the lender and so lowers the cost of credit to the borrower. However, the Hong Kong system, being largely derived from English law, is highly complex and in need of root-and-branch reform. The forces of inaction have triumphed and valuable opportunities to create a modern, rational and efficient system have been squandered. In China, on the other hand, a completely new system has been created in the last twenty years which, whilst it has various problems and defects, has some notable advantages over the common law equivalent found in Hong Kong.

This book provides a comprehensive guide to the competition regimes of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Chinese developments are placed in the context of the adoption of competition regimes by developing and transitional states worldwide and also in relation to the influence of trans-national organisations on transitional states to adopt market-based economic strategies. The book adopts an inter-disciplinary approach considering the political, economic and legal issues relevant to competition policy adoption. The paradoxical phenomenon of Communist mainland China seeking to adopt a pro-competition law, whilst capitalist Hong Kong refuses to do so, is explained and contrasted with the successful Taiwanese adoption of a competition regime over a decade ago. The underlying economic and political forces that have shaped this unusual matrix are discussed and analysed with a theoretical explanation offered for its consequences.