Feb. 15, 2007 (China Knowledge) – Hong Kong market regulators are looking into whether HSBC Holdings <5> failed to abide by certain requirements outlined by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing <388>, reported The Standard.

This comes from complaints by some market observers that the London-based banking group failed to issue the Chinese-language version of its profit warning in a timely manner February 8, thereby preventing some investors from responding promptly to the warning.

The English-language version of the warning was filed to the local bourse at 9.33am that day, 27 minutes before the market opened. However, the Chinese-language version was not issued until much later that day.

The announcement was an unprecedented profit warning that cautioned investors about higher- than-estimated risk provisions due to a weak housing market in the U.S.