在拒絕美國要求放棄免除本地經驗要求後，香港將於 12 月結束長達十年的相互會計承認協議

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Hong Kong to end decade-long mutual accounting recognition pact in December after rejecting US demand to waive local experience rule

South China Morning Post

Thu, May 26, 2022, 2:30 AM

Hong Kong and the United States will end the mutual recognition of audit work done by each other's professional accountants because of a dispute over the admissibility of overseas experience, adding another wrinkle to a fraught relationship.

The mutual recognition agreement with the US International Qualifications Appraisal Board (IQAB), first signed in 2011 and renewed in 2020, will no longer be effective when it expires on December 31, according to a statement by the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Accountants (HKICPA), the city's accounting guild, with 45,000 members.

"The institute and IQAB could not come to an agreement" over the recognition of experience obtained in the US towards meeting the one-year local experience requirement for overseas-trained accountants to practise in Hong Kong, "and therefore could not proceed on the renewal of the mutual recognition agreement," the HKICPA said.

"It is important for overseas accountants to have local experience as there are a lot of differences in the laws and taxation regulations between Hong Kong and the US," said Edmund Wong Chun-sek, a ­practising director at Patrick Wong CPA, who also represents the accountancy constituency in the city's legislature.

The 2011 agreement, subject to renewals every three years, allowed Hong Kong's certified accountants to practise in the US without requiring another round of qualifications, and vice versa.

The HKICPA has similar accords with 12 accounting bodies, including Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Canada, Ireland and Zimbabwe. The IQAB's mutual recognition agreements cover seven accounting bodies besides Hong Kong: South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Mexico and Scotland, according to its website. It did not respond to a request by the Post for comment.

The dispute comes at a sensitive time in deteriorating US-China relations, with Hong Kong caught between the world's two largest economies. The former Trump administration enacted the 2020 Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA), which empowers regulators to expel US-listed foreign companies if they were deemed to be non-compliant with auditing requests by a US oversight board.

That puts 261 Chinese companies valued at a combined US$1.4 trillion as of March 31 - including this newspaper's owner Alibaba Group Holding and Li Ka-shing's Hutchmed - on the list for possible delisting after three consecutive years of non-compliance if a solution were not found to settle the dispute with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). The earliest that such a delisting could take place is in October 2023.

"The end of the mutual recognition between Hong Kong and the US is just bad timing," said BDO's managing director Clement Chan, the HKICPA's chairman in 2014. "Some people will easily link that up with the political situation" between the US, China and Hong Kong, he said, adding that the local experience rule applies to every professional body that the HKICPA has ties with.

"It is a fair requirement, and the HKICPA cannot just give the waiver to the US," he said.

Hong Kong is grouped with mainland China in a December 16 determination by the PCAOB of being "unable to inspect or investigate completely."

Chinese and US regulators have been working on a solution, with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) chairman Yi Huiman saying as recently as April 9 that the watchdog agency would "move forward" with a plan to work with the US to "establish an international regulatory environment for a highly [liberalised] capital market."

To forestall the spectre of expulsion from New York, numerous US-listed companies have sought to raise capital in Hong Kong, either in dual listings, or secondary offerings. Beginning with Alibaba's US$12.9 billion stock sale in November 2019, a string of China-domiciled companies had followed: Baidu, NetEase, JD.com, Xpeng.

More are on the way, said Nicolas Aguzin, chief executive of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX), the operator of the city's bourse, predicting that at least 180 companies are waiting for the right market moment to sell their stock.

Translation

因海外經驗可否被認受的爭議，港美雙方將終止相互承認對方專業會計師審計工作，令雙方緊張關係再添波瀾。

根據香港會計師公會 (HKICPA) 的一份聲明，與美國國際資歷評估委員會 (IQAB) 簽署的互認協議於 2011 年首次簽署並於 2020 年續簽，將於 12 月 31 日到期後不再生效。這個香港的會計師公會，擁有 45,000 名會員。

香港會計師公會說: “該會計師公會與 IQAB 未能就認可在美國獲得的會計經驗, 去達到海外培訓會計師在香港執業的一年本地經驗的要求達成協議，因此無法進行續期 互認協議” 。

“海外會計師擁有本地經驗很重要，香港和美國的法律和稅務法規存在很大差異”, Patrick Wong CPA 的執業董事 Edmund Wong Chun-sek 說，他同時代表香港立法機構的會計選區。

2011年的協議每三年更新一次，允許香港的註冊會計師在美國執業而無需另一輪資格，反之美國會計師在香港亦然。

香港會計師公會與澳洲、新西蘭、蘇格蘭、南非、加拿大、愛爾蘭和津巴布韋等12個會計機構簽訂了類似的協議。據其網站介紹，IQAB 的互認協議涵蓋除香港以外的七個會計機構：南非、澳大利亞、新西蘭、加拿大、愛爾蘭、墨西哥和蘇格蘭。它沒有回應 South China Morning Post 的置評請求。

這場爭端發生在美中關係惡化的敏感時期，香港夾在世界最大的兩個經濟體之間。前特朗普政府頒布了《2020 年外國公司責任法案》（HFCAA），該法案授權監管機構在美國上市的外國公司, 在被認為不符合美國監督委員會的審計要求時將其逐出。

如果沒有找出方案解決與上市公司會計監督委員會 (PCAOB) 爭議, 這使截至 3 月 31 日價值 1.4 萬億美元的 261 家中國公司 - 包括 SCMP 的所有者阿里巴巴集團控股和李嘉誠的 Hutchmed - 在連續三年不合規之後可能被退市。這種退市最早可能發生在 2023 年 10 月。

2014年擔任香港會計師公會主席、BDO 董事總經理 Clement Chan表示： “香港和美國結束互認只是時機不佳”; “有些人很容易將這與中美之間的政治局勢聯繫起來”; 他補充說，本地經驗規則適用於與香港會計師公會有聯繫的每個專業團體。

他說: “這是一個公平的要求，香港會計師公會不能僅僅給予美國豁免” 。

PCAOB 在 12 月 16 日確定香港 “無法徹底審計或查核” ，將香港與中國大陸歸為一類。

中國和美國監管機構一直在研究解決方案，中國證監會主席 Yi Huiman 最近在 4 月 9 日表示，監管機構將 “向前推進”，計劃與美國合作“建立一個高度[自由化]資本市場的國際監管環境。”

為了防避被逐出紐約的陰影，許多在美國上市的公司都試圖在香港籌集資金，無論是雙重上市，還是二次發行。從 2019 年 11 月阿里巴巴 129 億美元的股票發售開始，一系列在中國註冊的公司緊隨其後：百度、網易、京東、小鵬。

香港的交易所運營商, 即香港交易及結算所有限公司（HKEX）的首席執行官 Nicolas Aguzin 表示，更多的公司正在等待合適出售其股票的市場時機。

       So, Hong Kong and the United States will end the mutual recognition of audit work done by each other's professional accountants because of a dispute over the admissibility of overseas experience.