Pandora Papers: Hong Kong Leader Discusses Findings About Predecessor Leung Chun-Ying

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam responded to leaked Pandora Papers findings that her predecessor Leung Chun-ying sold shares through a shell company during an anti-corruption probe while he was still the city's chief executive.

"We have a very robust declaration of interest system, both applicable to executive council members as well as principal officials," said Lam. "But at the end of the day, this is an honor system. We do not check, monitor or investigate into registerable interests on each member."

The Pandora Papers investigation named two former leaders of Hong Kong.

Billionaire Tung Chee-hwa and his family have registered nearly 30 offshore companies and Leung Chun-ying was listed as the owner of two BVI companies while serving as Hong Kong’s chief executive, as its leaders are known. Leung was investigated by the city’s anti-corruption agency, but the Justice Department in 2018 dropped the case due to insufficient evidence.

Neither responded to requests for comment from the ICIJ, the group said.

Using offshore accounts in low-tax jurisdictions is legal in most countries and many of the people named in the data release aren’t accused of criminal wrongdoing.

China’s only politician to be named in a sprawling investigation of millions of confidential financial documents is a female entrepreneur who the report says set up an offshore firm to trade U.S. stocks.

Feng Qiya, a delegate to China’s annual parliamentary pageant, the National People’s Congress, in 2016 set up an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands called Linkhigh Trading Ltd. to make the transactions, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The company had $2 million in assets and was registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, but is currently inactive, ICIJ said.

Feng, who in 2019 recommended “stricter laws to prevent corruption and white-collar crime involving private companies,” according to the ICIJ, was one of hundreds of politicians, including current and former world leaders, and other high-profile power brokers named in the unprecedented leak of nearly 12 million documents from 14 legal and financial firms.

She did not respond to repeated requests for comment, the group said.

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