Address: 10/F, Two Taikoo Place, 979 King's Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

The Accounting and Financial Reporting Council (AFRC) is committed to openness and transparency in all of its activities.  The AFRC will provide information relating to its policies, decisions and other matters falling within its area of responsibility, except for information which is subject to the preservation of secrecy provisions under the Accounting and Financial Reporting Council Ordinance, Cap. 588 (AFRCO) and/or listed out under the section “Information requests which may be refused” below.  Nothing in this statement of policy affects any legal restrictions on access to information whether they are statutory prohibitions, obligations arising under the common law or international agreements which apply to Hong Kong.

Information available

The following information is available on the AFRC website:

1. Background information on the AFRC, including its role, funding and organization structure
2. The AFRCO, the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (Cap. 615) and Memoranda of Understanding signed with other regulators
3. Information on the AFRC’s functions, including work procedures, operations statistics and the AFRC’s disciplinary decisions
4. Publications, including quarterly reports, annual reports and press releases
5. Public registers, including register of PIE Auditors, and register of CPAs (practising), CPA firms and corporate practices

For access to other information, please forward your request to the Manager (Human Resources and Administration) of the AFRC.

Procedures and charges

Requests for access to information held by the AFRC can be sent by email (email address: general@afrc.org.hk), by fax (fax no.: (852) 2810 6320) or by post to:

Manager (Human Resources and Administration)

Accounting and Financial Reporting Council

10/F, Two Taikoo Place

979 King’s Road, Quarry Bay

Hong Kong

Information available on this website can be downloaded free of charge. The AFRC can help provide black and white printouts of information on this website at a charge of HK$1.00 per page of A4 size. The charge is subject to revision from time to time.

Where possible, information will be made available within five working days after the receipt of a request.  If that is not possible, the applicant will be informed within five working days of the time at which the information can be made available.  If a request is to be declined, the AFRC will inform the applicant and give an explanation within the above timeframe.

The AFRC is not obliged to:

1. Acquire information which is not in its possession
2. Create a record which does not exist
3. Provide on request information which is already published, either free or at a charge
4. Provide information available through an existing charged service

Information requests which may be refused

All information related to the AFRC’s operations in the performance of its functions is generally subject to secrecy requirements under the AFRCO and will not be disclosed. 

The AFRC may refuse to disclose, or to confirm or deny the existence of, the following information:

1. Information whose disclosure would constitute a contravention of any law which applies in Hong Kong
2. Information relevant to law enforcement and legal proceedings
3. Papers for and records of discussions at any internal meeting of the AFRC
4. Information provided by a third party
5. Information which will soon be published or which it would be premature to publish due to a planned publication by the AFRC
6. Information which would harm or prejudice the management and operations of the AFRC, where “harm” and “prejudice” include both actual harm and prejudice and the risk or reasonable expectation of harm and prejudice, in which case the AFRC will consider whether the public interest in the disclosure of the information outweighs any harm or prejudice which could result
7. Information the disclosure of which would harm or prejudice Hong Kong’s security or national security, or the maintenance of stability in financial markets
8. Information the disclosure of which could lead to improper gain or advantage
9. Information relating to incomplete analysis, research or statistics, or held only for preparing statistics or carrying out research, and which relates to individuals, companies or products which will not be identified in reports of that research, or in published statistics
10. Information which is received in confidence from, and conveyed in confidence to, e.g. any government departments, international organizations or regulators, whether in or outside Hong Kong
11. Information which could only be made available by unreasonable diversion of the AFRC’s resources

Review

Any person who believes that the AFRC has failed to comply with this Access to Information Policy may request the AFRC to review the situation or complain to the Ombudsman.  

For enquiries, please contact the Manager (Human Resources and Administration) of the AFRC at (852) 2810 6321.