Hong Kong Listed Firms Suspended from Trading – Hackers not to Blame

It was a commercial printing error, not hackers, that caused two companies listed on the Hong Kong Exchange to be suspended earlier this week. Confusion, and previous security concerns, led to the initial reports that hacking was involved. However, the exchange and one of the companies involved deny the reports of a security incident.

Lijun International said in a statement that its commercial printer had suffered an information security failure, but didn’t discuss any specific details. This alleged failure led to Lijun’s earnings report being made available earlier than scheduled, and the company being placed into a trading halt. Additional mix-ups included an erroneous posting of takeover documents, which seen the take over of G-Prop Ltd. Being published under Natural Dairy’s ticker.

The Hong Kong Exchange said that hackers were not the issue. The bourse said that commercial printing errors led to three documents being published incorrectly, denying claims in the South China Morning Post that hackers were to blame. Each of the firms involved had used the same printing company.

The printing company itself, A.Plus Financial Press Ltd., denied any wrong doing, commenting in a statement to Bloomberg on Tuesday that an “unidentified person or people uploaded several documents without authorization.”

Trading on Linjun and Natural Dairy were expected to resume on Wednesday. Both firms were still in a halt on Tuesday.