Date:  10 October 2026 (Saturday)  Time: 9:45am-1pm   Language: English  Level: Elementary

Speaker:         Dr. Rita Cheung, MCAL Solicitors LLP

Lawyer/Trainee Solicitor/Foreign Lawyer Other Professionals’ Elective RME &CPD Points:  3.5      Fee: HK$2,100

Highlight:

This seminar discusses the recent developments of the anti-money laundering regime. What are the new anti-money laundering law on regulating virtual assets (including cryptocurrencies like bitcoin) and dealers in precious metals and stones?

1 Reform

Customer due diligence obligations

  • Reform (1): financial institutions’ (金融機構)
  • Reform (2): four sectors of designated non-financial business and professions (指定非金融業人士): solicitors, accountants, estate agents, and trust or company service providers
  • Reform (3): 2023 witnesses a licensing regime for virtual asset service providers (Part 5B), together with a two-tier registration regime for dealers in precious metals (Part 5C).

2 Proving the ‘criminal’ source of property in money laundering prosecutions

  • Must the actual “criminal” source of the property be proved? Can ‘clean’ money be laundered?

3 The mental element

  • What is the mental element on a charge of money laundering?
  • Should the court take into account a defendant’s ‘beliefs, thoughts, and intention’?
  • HKSAR v Pang Hung Fai (2014) 17 HKCFAR 778; HKSAR v Harjani Haresh Murlidhar (2019) 22 HKCFAR 446

4 Solicitors’ role in due diligence

  • Practice Direction P (revised)
  • HKSAR v Wu Wing Kit [2017] HKDC 1064

Remark: All eligible lawyers including partners, sole proprietor, consultants, assistant solicitors, foreign lawyers and trainees should take at least 3 Elective RME points each year. All solicitors can have 3.5 CPD points per seminar. However, we will give the priority to all eligible solicitors in obtaining elective RME points and CPD points.

 

There are no items in the curriculum yet.
User Avatar

Rita Cheung

Dr. Rita Cheung L.L.B., P.C.L.L. (HKU); L.L.M, Ph.D. (King’s College Lond.). She obtained her Ph.D. in Law on the topic of minority shareholders’ rights from King’s College London. She was called to the Bar in 2006, and taught Law upon obtaining her doctorate degree. She writes in the field of company law in refereed journals including Cambridge Law Journal, Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, and Journal of Business Law. She has been regularly invited to speak at international conferences on money laundering and corporate crime. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Financial Crime.