Cap 437 - FOREIGN CORPORATIONS ORDINANCE 1
Chapter: 437 FOREIGN CORPORATIONS ORDINANCE Gazette Number Version Date
Long title 30/06/1997
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.
(Enacted 1993)
[29 October 1993]
(Originally 73 of 1993)
Section: 1 Short title 30/06/1997
This Ordinance may be cited as the Foreign Corporations Ordinance.
(Enacted 1993)
Section: 2 Recognition of corporate status of certain foreign
corporations
30/06/1997
(1) If at any time-
(a) 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
(b) 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.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)-
(a) "a recognized State" is a territory which is recognized by Her Majesty's Government in the United
Kingdom as a State;
(b) 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
(c) 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.
(3) 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.
(Enacted 1993)
