Areion Asset Management Company Limited

The application for judicial review of the SFC's decision to provide information to Japanese regulators fails.

The applicants are refused leave to amend their Form 86 (Notice of application for leave to apply for judicial review).

The SFC is ordered to disclose records of a phone call with the Japanese regulator on 4-Dec-2014, the day before the SESC announced that it had recommended an Administrative Monetary Penalty Order against the asset manager.

The SJ is granted permission to intervene because the applicants are challenging the constitutionality of Section 181 of the Securities and Futures Ordinance, which allows evidence to be obtained by compulsion.

Leave is granted for substituted service of documents on the Japanese regulators by courier. It turns out that since the 1997 handover, requests made to the HKSAR Chief Secretary to serve a foreign state out of the jurisdiction are sent to the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which refuses to effect service through diplomatic channels, so they go nowhere.

Ex-parte leave is granted to apply for judicial review of the SFC's decision to forward materials obtained under compulsion to the Japanese regulators.

The alleged manipulation relates to purchases of shares of Nitto Denko Corp by the Hareion Fund in the last 30 seconds prior to the stock's inclusion in a Nikkei index on 25-Sep-2013.