Mainland Firms Accept Hong Kong Lawyers
China — Since the signing of the Mainland-Hong Kong/Macau Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (‘CEPA’) in January 2004, lawyers from Hong Kong and Macau have been able to expand their business into mainland China.

On 9 February 2004, Ms Lin Yueming, a lawyer from Hong Kong who had passed her mainland lawyer qualification examination in 1994 was allowed to do her internship with a law firm in Shenzhen. She is reported to be the first Hong Kong lawyer to do her internship with a mainland firm.

Ms Yueming’s internship with the mainland firm and later receiving her certificate is seen as a milestone marking the legal co-operation between mainland China and Hong Kong. It is now expected that an increasing number of lawyers will be able to practise in both the mainland and Hong Kong or Macau and this would lead to a thriving legal service market in mainland China. (Source: www.china.org.cn )

Supreme Court to Consider Effectiveness Standards for Attorneys
US — The Florida Supreme Court will consider the effectiveness standards for attorneys when it focuses on a death row case involving a defendant who questioned his attorney’s strategy of admitting his guilt.

A lower court has ordered a new trial for Joe Elton Nixon, who was convicted of the 1984 murder of a woman he met at the mall. Nixon was found guilty of murder when his attorney told the jurors that the woman had died a ‘horrible, horrible’ death and that his client was guilty in the hopes that his candour would persuade the jury to spare Nixon’s life. The prosecution had presented in its case that Nixon had tied the woman to trees with jumper cables and had set her ablaze.

Nixon had apparently agreed to plead guilty when his attorney told him that in exchange for a guilty plea the prosecution would hand him a life sentence. However, the prosecution refused anything less than the death penalty and Nixon’s attorney went on to tell the jurors that there was no doubt about Nixon’s guilt, but that the real question was whether he deserved to die.

Nixon refused to attend his own trial and said that he wanted another attorney. Upon being found guilty, Nixon appealed and the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the attorney did not effectively represent Nixon, because Nixon did not explicitly agree to the strategy.

The state has now appealed stating that the Florida justices had failed to give any deference to trial counsel’s ‘strategic choices’ or to his evaluation of the risks of contesting guilt when the evidence of guilt was overwhelming. The case of Florida v Nixon will be argued before the Supreme Court in the fall. (Source: www.cnn.com )

Calls to Change Child Death Law
UK — The family of a four-year-old boy who died after being abused is trying to close a legal loophole that allows parents to get away with murder. John Smith died in 1999 after his foster parents abused him. He was found with 54 bruises and four adult bite marks. John’s foster parents were jailed eight years for child cruelty but escaped a murder trial. Presently, parents cannot be tried for murder if it is not known which one of them dealt the fatal blow. John’s family is hoping to change this law.

John’s aunt, Linda Terry, is writing to every MP urging them to support a bill which, if passed, would introduce a charge of familial homicide by causing or allowing the death of a child. Terry wants parents who murder children to be charged with murder and not be allowed to get away with assault. She was quoted as saying that ‘they need to be known as child murderers and not as people who have just injured or committed cruelty against a child’.

If the changes are passed, parents would no longer be able to escape justice by remaining silent or blaming each other for the death of a child. Once the changes are implemented a parent would face up to 14 years in jail if the parent failed to take steps to protect the child.

SFC to Rein in Wayward Analysts
Hong Kong — The Securities and Futures Commission (‘SFC’) will tighten its ‘rather general’ regulations to improve the scrutiny of analysts and prevent conflicts of interest. SFC executive director of intermediaries and investment products, Alexa Lam said the market watchdog was reviewing its code of conduct for analysts and would release a public consultation paper later this month.

SFC’s move comes after the Independent Commission Against Corruption arrested UBS Securities small-cap analyst Nicholas Tan and 20 other people recently for alleged market manipulation.

Lam also said that the commission would consider incorporating guidelines issued last September by the International Organisation of Securities Commissions, a global regulatory body.

According to an earlier SFC survey, about half the retail investors surveyed considered the basis and methods used by analysts to be sometimes unclear and inconsistent.

Under existing rules, brokers can pool all of the clients collateral — mainly stocks held in margin financing accounts but also collateral belonging to clients who have not borrowed — and re-pledge it to banks or finance companies to secure their own borrowings. (Source: www.thestandard.com.hk )