E-wallet company employees among four charged by ICAC for concealing conflict of interest over application contract

If Mr Lee accepted advantages from Ms Wong, and agreed to divulge sensitive information to the latter, he would contravene Section 9 of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance (POBO).  Ms Wong, who offered the bribe, would also commit an offence under POBO.

Protecting patent information is crucial for safeguarding the rights of inventors and organisations, and maintaining a competitive edge in the market.  To prevent, detect and deter similar malpractices, companies are advised to adopt adequate corruption prevention measures in the relevant process.

Case Analysis

Tony may have committed fraud by submitting false quotations to inflate the costs of digital solutions and falsely representing that the applicants had borne the required portion of project costs under the scheme.  Even if the applications were submitted by Tony on behalf of his clients, the SME clients may also incur criminal liability if they knowingly allowed the use of false quotations and supporting documents with the intent of securing approval of the subsidies.

On the other hand, Tony’s attempt to bribe a government official responsible for processing the applications may constitute an offence under Section 4 of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.  Section 4 prohibits any person from offering an advantage to a public servant as an inducement to or reward for that public servant’s performing or abstaining from performing any act in his or her official capacity.

To prevent, detect and deter similar malpractices, grantors and applicants of funding schemes are advised to adopt adequate corruption prevention measures in their operations.

An outside employment is an advantage under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance (POBO).   If Kenny accepted the consultant post for making Philip’s company an authorised vendor of the telephone company, he might be charged of acceptance of bribe.  Philip might also be charged of offering of bribe. Both of them would commit an offence under Section 9 of the POBO.

Besides, there would also be a potential conflict of interest for Kenny to take up the consultant post in Philip’s engineering company even if no bribery was involved.  Kenny should declare his interest by informing his employer in writing of this outside employment.

Divulging information to unauthorised parties for personal gain is a criminal act under anti-corruption law.  The sales supervisor had committed Section 9 of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.  Leaking customers’ personal data is also a breach of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance and can expose the company to damaging lawsuits.

In a case of this kind, a great deal of time was usually required in identifying the suspect during the investigation, because the client database was open to many staff members for reasons of operating efficiency.  If no security measures were in place to control the retrieval of information, innocent staff would be  unhappy to find that they were suspected of the illegal act when investigation was required.  Besides, some staff members like the sales supervisor in this case might consider it a trivial matter to trade client information for some extra cash, especially when the information was so easily accessible.  

Where important data such as customer details, business plans, product designs, etc., are kept in digital formats, this becomes an area that is vulnerable to corruption and related crimes.  Managers must therefore be vigilant in maintaining the security of valuable information. Irrespective of the format in which it is stored, managers should classify information into different security levels according to the degree of sensitivity and confidentiality.   This helps prevent unauthorised access.

It is crucial that managers inform staff clearly of the serious consequences, both for themselves and for the company, that can result from the unauthorised disclosure of company information. The human resources policy of the company should be regularly reviewed and constantly enforced to provide the necessary deterrents against misconduct, e.g. any breach will result in dismissal and report to the relevant law enforcement agencies.