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By Lawrence White and Iain Withers
LONDON, Jan 26 (Reuters) - HSBC is "aiding and
abetting one of the biggest crackdowns on democracy in the
world", British lawmaker Chris Bryant told the bank's chief
executive Noel Quinn on Tuesday in a hearing over its freezing
of Hong Kong democrats' bank accounts.
The CEO's summons to face the cross-party Foreign Affairs
Committee came after former Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui
criticised HSBC for blocking his local bank accounts.
The bank is complying with its legal obligations and is "not
in a position to judge the motives" of Hong Kong police, Quinn
told lawmakers questioning him over the lender's freezing of
bank accounts of Hui and other pro-democracy politicians in the
Asian city.
"I can't cherry-pick which laws to follow," Quinn said,
adding that the bank would have to comply with police requests
in any country in the world.
When pressed by lawmakers whether HSBC would ever deny
police requests on ethical grounds, Quinn said he was not
considering this in Hong Kong.
"If you're asking, am I willing to walk away from Hong Kong?
The answer is no. We're too committed through our history and
heritage."
Quinn had written to Hui, in a rare move by a bank boss to
an individual customer, to argue that the bank had no choice and
was complying with a police request.
The grilling from British lawmakers saw HSBC yet again
dragged into the political battle between Hong Kong's
pro-Beijing and Democratic factions, as well as the wider
tensions between China and the West over the city's future.
Founded in Hong Kong but headquartered in Britain, HSBC has
historically tried to remain politically neutral.
Recently however it has shown support for Beijing, most
notably last June when its top executive in Asia signed a
petition backing China’s imposition of a national security law
on Hong Kong.
Police in Hong Kong, as in most places in the world, have
long been able to request customer information from banks and
ask that accounts be frozen as part of criminal investigations.
Authorities are also scrutinizing the financial records of
pro-democracy activists as they crack down on political
opposition, Reuters reported earlier on Tuesday.
HSBC's lawyers believe a separate national intelligence law
passed in 2017, which requires companies to assist China's state
intelligence operations, "has no extraterritorial reach", the
bank's head of compliance Colin Bell said.
That means the bank would not for example send information
about individual British-based bank accounts to China, he said
in response to lawmakers' questions.
(Reporting by Lawrence White and Iain Withers; Editing by
Bernadette Baum and Jan Harvey)
