Ava Costa

First, the context: the speed of trading does not change the substance of fraudulent false statements; whether it takes seconds or years, manipulation remains manipulation. In Hong Kong, our primary concern remains market integrity and investor protection against misleading information, regardless of how long the securities are held. A denial of merger negotiations, if proven fraudulent, would be treated with the same severity by the SFC, because the impact on price formation is clear, even if transactions occur in nanoseconds, unlike the era of Basic Inc.

Uncertainty is not the enemy; shouldn't we rather question the nature of this supposedly fundamental opposition between the presumption of market fraud and negative fraud tactics?
The presumption does not deny the existence of these tactics; rather, it establishes a legal a posteriori mechanism to address them, leaving room for an asymmetry of information exploited by savvy actors.
Saying that these dynamics are logically opposed is an excessive simplification, because in complex markets, institutional investors like us anticipate these risks and adjust our investment strategies.
The real danger is not the risk itself, but an excessive caution that hampers the ability to capitalize on unique opportunities, for example when unfavorable information creates entry points at lower cost for share buybacks.