The scourge of Hong Kong

Every city needs a David Webb. Hong Kong, a heaving, sweating shrine to capitalism, cronyism and cartels, is lucky it has the real thing. Shareholder rights and corporate governance remain largely alien concepts in this former British colony, which is about to mark the tenth anniversary of its return to China. It sometimes feels that Webb, a former London investment banker who moved to Hong Kong for Barclays, is the only person who cares about the rights of small shareholders, or about checking the corrosive influence of the city’s all-powerful tycoons.

Lean and acerbic, Webb resembles a thin David Shayler, the former MI5 officer. He doesn’t do small talk, and stares at you with disturbing concentration. By his own admission, he’s a geek — in the early 1980s he co-authored instruction manuals for early Sinclair Spectrum computers. Yet he has become one of the most respected and feared players in a city that thrives on creative accounting, insider trading and the protection of vested interests — the very things that Webb has made it his mission to wipe out.