A 41-year-old director and shareholder of AF Trinity Technologies Limited has been convicted of assisting, aiding, counselling, procuring or inducing another person to commit misconduct in public office after confidential information from rival bidders was used in a Hong Kong Trade Development Council tender.
The case centred on the council’s e-Marketplace website optimisation project, which was tendered between December 2018 and March 2019 and was worth more than HK$2.3 million. AF Trinity was one of the invited service providers and won the contract after receiving the highest combined score.
The ICAC investigation found that a then assistant business manager at the council supplied the director with material from the submissions of three other service providers. The employee also helped draft AF Trinity’s technical proposal and prepare its oral presentation.
The presiding magistrate found that messages from the director requesting other suppliers’ technical proposals amounted to encouragement and inducement of misconduct in public office. The council’s employment contract and code of conduct prohibited staff from disclosing its confidential information without authorisation.
The employee pleaded guilty to one count of misconduct in public office on 21 November 2025 and was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years.
The magistrates’ court adjourned the director’s sentencing to 14 October 2026 while a community-service-order report is prepared. He remains on bail pending that hearing.