Info Center

In her latest blog post, published today (30 October), MPFA Chairman Mrs Ayesha Macpherson Lau said that any non-compliant behaviour related to the MPF will weaken the retirement protection of employees, and that the MPFA would not stand aside. In fact, the vast majority of employers are law-abiding, and only a small percentage of them defaulted on MPF contributions requiring the Authority to take follow-up actions.  However, the pandemic has affected the Hong Kong economy for nearly three years resulting in an increase in the number of default MPF contributions (DC) cases. To protect the retirement benefits of scheme members, the Authority is obliged to take enforcement action against non-compliance. As soon as any non-compliance is found, the MPFA will take the initiative to recover the DC from the employer with a four-step approach on behalf of the affected employees.

First, the MPFA will immediately issue a payment notice to an employer that has defaulted on its MPF contributions to recover the DC and surcharges for the affected employees. The recovered payments will be directly deposited to the MPF accounts of the employees. Over the past three years, the number of payment notices issued by the MPFA has been rising, from about 260,000 in 2019-20 before the COVID-19 pandemic, to nearly 320,000 in 2021-22, an increase of 22%. In the first six months of 2022-23, i.e. April to September 2022, the MPFA had issued more than 170,000 payment notices, or a monthly average of 28,500, which is the highest in the past three years, reflecting a growing trend of DC cases since the pandemic began.

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If the employer fails to pay the DC before the deadline set in the payment notice, the MPFA will take the second step, which involves contacting the employer to collect the relevant information, such as income of the employees, and demand the employer to rectify all DC immediately. If the employer continues to default on the contributions, the MPFA will take the third step, which involves filing a civil claim in court to recover the DC and surcharges in arrears on behalf of the employees. In 2021-22, the MPFA successfully recovered about $140 million of DC and surcharges for over 80,000 employees. In the first six months of 2022-23 (April to September 2022), approximately $84 million of DC and surcharges were recovered for over 50,000 employees.

If the employer has been liquidated or declared bankrupt, the MPFA will take the fourth step, which is to provide proof of debt to the liquidator or the Insolvency Officer on behalf of the employees. If any payments are received from the liquidator, the MPFA will pay the amount to the MPF trustee for allocation to the MPF accounts of employees.

Mrs Lau pointed out that the MPFA has always maintained close communication with the labour unions, so the MPFA can swiftly contact the affected workers and grasp the details of cases to ensure quick follow-up action. Taking recent DC cases of the catering industry as examples, the MPFA proactively contacted the labour unions and participated in meetings with them to directly explain the DC recovery procedure to the workers and solicit information from them to expedite the process.

The MPFA also introduced new measures to tackle non-compliant cases, including requiring MPF trustees to notify scheme members via email after processing employers’ MPF contributions, and preparing to extend the service hours of the hotline to assist those in need to make enquiries and/or lodge complaints to the MPFA. In the future, the MPFA will receive DC reports directly from the eMPF Platform, thus facilitating quicker and more targeted enforcement action.

(Image 2: MPFA Chairman Mrs Ayesha Macpherson Lau exchanged views on protection of workers’ MPF rights with representatives of the Eating Establishment Employees General Union and workers in early October)

For the full version of the article, please visit the MPFA blog. The blog is in Chinese only.

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30 October 2022