The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong has fined FIL Investment Management (Hong Kong) Ltd the equivalent of US$450,460 for dealing without a licence and other transgressions. There is no evidence of its HNW clients or others having suffered any financial loss.

Between August 2007 and July 2018 the reprimanded firm carried out Type 2 (dealing in futures contracts) regulated activities without a Type 2 licence and gave the SFC incorrect information while applying to have a new fund authorised. The trading activities involved 6,738 trades in futures contracts (with an aggregate transaction value of about US$39.7 billion) executed by FIM for its affiliated entities during that period.

An external auditor found out that no formal maker/checker controls existed to govern the way in which the legal team drafted the documents that the firm had to submit to the SFC - something that the regulator regarded as a heinous weakness. The regulator is charging FIL with failing to act with due skill, care and diligence in submitting information to it in breach of general principle 2 (regarding diligence) of its Code of Conduct and of not having systems and controls capable of ensuring the accuracy of the information that the firm had to submit to it, in breach of general principle 3 ('capabilities') of that code and paragraph 1.2(c) of the Fund Manager Code of Conduct. There is no evidence to suggest that the firm's failures were intentional or deliberate.

Established in 1969 as the international arm of Fidelity Investments, which was founded in Boston in 1946, Fidelity International (FIL Investment Management (Hong Kong) Ltd's parent company) became independent of the US organisation in 1980 and is owned mainly by its managers and members of the founding family. Among its clients it numbers many wealth management firms and HNWs. FIL Hong Kong offers them investment administration and advisory services.