Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has earlier today updated its Alert List of unlicensed investment companies, with the latest addition being Hong Kong Goldman Sachs Financial Investment Ltd, a company which is misusing the name of international financial services giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS).
The case exemplifies the practice of business cloning, that is, of unlicensed entities abusing data (names, addresses, etc) of legitimate companies, in order to lure clients more easily.
The fraudulent entity operates from two websites: https://gsjr222.com and www.151178.com. It provides the following address: 58/F, Cheung Kong Center, 2 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong, but is not located there.
The Hong Kong regulator notes that Hong Kong Goldman Sachs Financial Investment Ltd (that is, the clone) is not associated with Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C., Goldman Sachs Futures (Asia) Limited and Goldman Sachs (Asia) Securities Limited, which are SFC licensed corporations.
Goldman Sachs is not the first investment giant to have clones in Hong Kong – earlier this year, in October, Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) warned of a fraudulent entity in Hong Kong misusing its name.
To view the official warning from Hong Kong’s SFC, click here.