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The purpose of this paper is to discuss briefly new developments in Hong Kong’s (HK) Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws, both in terms of case law and legislation.

In terms of case law, the author discusses two decisions given by HK’s Court of Final Appeal relating to the dealing of proceeds of crime offence. Also, a guideline case on sentencing is also examined. In terms of legislation, the author briefly outlines the main provisions of the newly enacted AML and Counter-Terrorist Financing (Financial Institutions) Ordinance.

As suggested by the Financial Action Task Force, new measures need to be put in place. The AML laws, as they presently stand, need further improvement.

A good AML regime is necessary as HK continues to thrive as a major financial/banking centre in Asia. This paper seeks to encourage more discussion on the topic.

This paper aims to assess all compulsory land acquisition court decisions in Australia over 1985‐2009 to provide a risk assessment and compensation analysis involved in proceeding to court for compulsory land acquisition cases.

Using the AustLII legal database, every publicly available compulsory land acquisition court case decision in Australia over 1985‐2009 is assessed. These 58 court cases are assessed for claim, offer and judgment value.

A total of 91.4 percent of compulsory land acquisition court cases over 1985‐2009 were found to be successful in achieving a judgment value of at least that of the offer. The median judgment value for successful cases was 60 percent higher than the offer value, while for unsuccessful cases it was 68 percent lower than the offer value. Successful smaller judgments (<$2 million) generated more upside compensation (median of 66 percent) than larger judgments (>$2 million) (median 41 percent upside compensation). Appealed cases were found to be only 28.6 percent successful, with only a maximum of 5.6 percent additional compensation achieved.

This paper provides a rigorous empirical risk assessment and compensation analysis for compulsory land acquisition court cases in Australia over the last 25 years. This provides an effective tool for dispossessed property owners, statutory acquirers and their professional legal and valuation advisors for more informed compulsory land acquisition court case decision making.

Using all compulsory land acquisition court decisions in Australia over the last 25 years, this paper is the first attempt internationally to rigorously and empirically conduct a risk assessment and compensation analysis involved with proceeding to court for compulsory land acquisition cases. Given the significance of the compulsory land acquisition process, this empirically validated research enables a more informed and critical understanding of the risk factors and compensation outcomes attached to the compulsory land acquisition court case judgment process.

The paper seeks to ascertain if there exists a uniform approach towards reporting on contaminated land in practice standards employed in Australia and the UK. The UK is a highly industrialised country and Australia is less so. The paper also tries to find out if the practice standard in a less industrialised country is less stringent than the practice standard in a highly industrialised country.

The paper compares the valuation practice standards in Australia and the UK. In the former country, formal guidance on contaminated land valuation was first published in 1994 by the Australian Institute of Valuers and Land Economists (now the Australian Property Institute) in the Contaminated Land Practice Standard. This document was subsequently downgraded from a practice standard to a guidance note, “Guidance Note 15 Reporting on Contaminated Land” of Professional Practice 2002. In the UK practice standards are contained in the RICS guidance note Contamination and Environmental Matters their Implications for Property Professionals. (RICS, 2003a).

Both Australia and the UK have developed significant and detailed guidance notes on contamination and environmental matters. The respective guidance notes reflect the varying socio‐economic backgrounds of the two countries in particular differing industrial legacies. Despite a high degree of similarity in the approaches and procedures adopted there are nonetheless significant differences across the two sets of standards. The extended guidance in the UK highlights the increasing knowledge on contamination and environmental matters as it affects all types of chartered surveyors rather than focussing solely on the valuation function. In contrast the Australian guidance note appears to be more prescriptive concentrating on the details of the valuation role.

Contaminated land is an environmental problem that causes great concerns among the general public, landowners, occupiers, investors and financial institutions. Despite the negative image of contaminated land, valuers are from time to time instructed to assess its market value. In this regard, valuation institutions in most developed countries have prepared a practice standard to help members report on contaminated land. Each country has its unique socio‐economic background. The various practice standards will no doubt reflect the respective conditions in their country and the reporting standards will be different. Thus, it can be inferred that there is a substantial difference in the reporting standards between highly industrialised countries and less industrialised countries.

The purpose of this paper is to re‐visit the problems of taxation consequences of sinking fund in the UK and to look at what is believed to be the only rational reason for using the dual rate adjusted for tax method variant.

The structure of this paper is: valuing a freehold and a leasehold interest by the single rate gross and net of tax approaches to show the logic that works with freehold valuation interest may not work with leasehold valuation; exploring the tax impacts on sinking fund; resolving the taxation issue of sinking fund; demonstrating the solution to the “double sinking fund problem” by the Greaves method and the single rate net of tax approach; and exploring the future of the dual rate theory.

The paper confirms that the traditional method is not satisfactory, even after the modifications made by the various methods mentioned above. The single rate net of tax approach is proved to meet all expectations and can be regarded as a more rational approach to the dual rate method.

Valuers of the “UK School” might consider that not only should dual rate valuation be regarded as defunct, but also that the more appropriate approach might be to move to a net of taxation approach.

This paper is the original work of the authors.

This paper attempts to empirically examine the property taxes and fees for residential development to determine whether they have a significant impact on house prices in Sydney and Taipei.

Property charges and taxes in Sydney and Taipei are examined and compared. A conclusion is then drawn from the results of the analysis.

It is found that property taxes and fees account for a substantial portion of property prices in Sydney but not Taipei. There is room for the government to reduce the amount of property taxes and fees to enhance housing affordability in Sydney.

This study has limitations in that only two cities are involved. As such, the findings are not exhaustive or conclusive. When conditions allow, a comprehensive study of all major cities in the two countries should be conducted. Nevertheless, this study does provide some background information about cost components of house prices and the impact of property taxes and fees in both cities. It may serve as a stepping stone for future research.

High property taxes and fees are suspected to be a culprit for causing high house prices. The findings of the paper show that it is true in Sydney, but not Taipei. It implies that by cutting property taxes and fees alone may not solve the high house price problem.

This paper demonstrates that high property taxes and fees have a significant impact on house prices in Sydney. However, their impact on house prices in Taipei is minimal. The difference shows that high property taxes and fees may not be the cause of high house prices in all countries.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the context of ad pictures differs between Chinese ads and US ads and whether it can influence consumers' ad attitudes.

An ad content analysis and a laboratory experiment were conducted to test the hypotheses.

Findings suggest that contextualized ads appear more frequently in Chinese magazines because East Asians have a context‐dependent mode of thinking while westerners have a context‐independent mode of thinking. However, the effect of culture on advertising is moderated by product class (goods vs service), product category, and magazine category. Moreover, East Asians prefer contextualized ads to non‐contextualized ones, while westerners prefer non‐contextualized ads to contextualized ads. However, the effect of culture on ad attitudes may be moderated by ad involvement.

The limitations of this study stem from its being based on ad samples from China and its use of students to test ad attitudes.

The findings allow managers to better determine whether and under what conditions to use contextualized or non‐contextualized advertisements.

The study's examination of the effect of culture on the context of ad format and effect of context on persuasion in this context constitutes a unique and valuable contribution to the literature. The paper also contributes much to the literature by checking cultural differences across 17 magazine categories, compared to the vast majority of studies analyzing ad content between eastern and western cultures, which have been based on ads from only a few sources.

Several emergency public health issues have a tremendous impact on and rely upon close coordination with law enforcement officials. Most interactions involve law enforcement personnel providing security, crowd control, and/or traffic control during public health related incidents. However, as varied chemical and biological threats have emerged over the years, this interaction has increased to include joint investigations between the two disciplines. Certain biological threats, such as pandemics, pose direct threats to the law enforcement agency operations. Understanding the role of public health in emergencies, the overlapping missions, and the threats at all levels allows law enforcement professionals to better prepare themselves and their organizations for coordinating operations and maintaining continuity of law enforcement services.

Sex appeal has been widely used in most countries. However, little is known about consumers' responses to sex appeal advertising in different cultures. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of sex appeal on ad and brand evaluation among Australian, Chinese and US consumers.

The paper adopted a three (Australia, China and the USA) × two (male or female model) × two (low or high level of sex appeal) between‐group factorial design.

Australian, Chinese and US consumers have significantly different attitudes when exposed to the same ad. However, consumer buying intentions towards the advertised brand are not significantly different. Despite the general assumption that Chinese consumers might react least favourably to sex appeal ads, this paper finds that they hold similar attitudes towards sex appeal ads as US consumers and even more favourable attitudes than Australian consumers. Product involvement is found to be a significant covariate.

The sample includes young consumers, who may be more tolerant to sex appeal advertising than older generations in China. A similar situation may exist in Australia and the USA.

Understanding how consumers in different cultures respond to different advertising appeal strategies is important for international advertisers.

This is the first reported empirical study that compares Chinese consumers' responses to sex appeal advertising with those in Western countries. Findings add to the understanding of the standardisation‐localisation debate.