19th December 2025 – (Hong Kong) The Hong Kong Bar Association is preparing a package of legal reform proposals, including the criminalisation of bid-rigging and the elevation of key construction safety guidelines into binding law, in response to the city’s deadliest fire in more than 70 years.
The move follows last month’s catastrophic blaze at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po, which claimed at least 160 lives and exposed serious deficiencies in building renovation practices and fire safety oversight. The association has set up a dedicated task force to review existing legislation and identify targeted changes.
Bar Association chairman Jose‑Antonio Maurellet said one of the group’s preliminary recommendations would be to treat bid-rigging as a criminal offence, rather than merely a serious form of anti‑competitive conduct under the Competition Ordinance, which currently attracts only financial penalties.
He acknowledged that proving collusive agreements in court is complex, but insisted that well‑designed legislation could still have a powerful deterrent effect.
Beyond bid‑rigging, the association is also examining how to give legal force to parts of existing technical codes, particularly those dealing with life‑critical safety standards. The Wang Fuk Court building was under renovation when the fire broke out, and substandard protective nets were reportedly in use despite official guidance requiring fire‑retardant materials.
Current instruments such as the Code of Practice for Bamboo Scaffolding Safety and the Code of Practice for Fire Safety in Buildings stipulate that nets installed on scaffolding should comply with appropriate fire‑retardant standards. However, these codes are advisory and not, at present, directly enforceable by law.
He further suggested that the Buildings Department, which already has the power to deregister contractors involved in serious incidents, should explore extending sanctions to other companies effectively controlled by the same individuals, to prevent problematic operators from simply re‑entering the market under new corporate names. At the same time, he sounded a note of caution that sweeping disqualification powers could have the unintended consequence of reducing competition in an already concentrated industry.
The Bar Association’s task force plans to finalise and submit its recommendations to the government once an independent review committee, appointed by the administration to investigate the Wang Fuk Court blaze, has delivered its own findings and advice.
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