An Ordinance to provide for the corporate status in Hong Kong of bodies established or formerly established under the laws of certain territories outside Hong Kong.
[29 October 1993]
(Format changes—E.R. 4 of 2021)
(Enacting provision omitted—E.R. 4 of 2021)
This Ordinance may be cited as the Foreign Corporations Ordinance.
If at any time—
a question arises as to whether a body, which purports to have or which appears to have lost corporate status under the laws of a territory outside Hong Kong which is not at that time a recognized State, should or should not be regarded as having legal personality as a body corporate under the law of Hong Kong; and
it appears that the laws of that territory are at that time applied by a settled court system in that territory,
that question and any other material question relating to the body shall be determined (and account shall be taken of those laws) as if that territory were a recognized State.
For the purposes of subsection (1)—
the laws of a territory which is so recognized shall be taken to include the laws of any part of the territory which are acknowledged by the federal or other central government of the territory as a whole; and
a material question is a question (whether as to capacity, constitution or otherwise) which, in the case of a body corporate, falls to be determined by reference to the laws of the territory under which the body is established.
Any registration or other thing done at a time before the coming into operation* of this section shall be regarded as valid if it would have been valid at that time, had subsections (1) and (2) been in operation.