Hong Kong's Eastern Magistrates’ Court has convicted Ms Yan Ching Ching for making three misleading representations in support of her licence application to the Securities and Futures Commission. The SFC maintains that applicants for licenses must mention their spent convictions.

Yan failed to disclose other things as well as her spent convictions (which she could normally keep secret in accordance with the Rehabilitation of Offenders Ordinance) in her SFC licence application in 2015. She was fined HK$15,000 and also ordered to pay the SFC’s investigation costs.

Yan was guilty of breaking section 383 Securities and Futures Ordinance, which dictates that a licensing applicant cannot say anything false or misleading. The SFC interprets such subterfuge as a comment on an applicant's "fitness and propriety."

In Hong Kong, applicants for regulatory licences need not report minor traffic or littering offences but everything else is reportable, along with every instance of having been charged with (but not found guilty of) an offence and/or having been investigated about anything that involves fraud and dishonesty. They must also say whether they have been subject to any order of a court or other competent authority for fraud, dishonesty or misfeasance.