Enforcement

Employers

Enforcement measures

MPFA detects non-compliance by investigating complaints and proactively inspecting employers’ premises, and will take enforcement measures against non-compliant employers (including those who are found to have evaded payment of MPF contributions, deducted employer’s contributions from an employee's pay, or failed to enrol their employees in an MPF scheme). Such measures may include:

Requesting employers to rectify the situation immediately
Imposing a contribution surcharge of 5% on defaulting employers
Filing a civil claim in court to recover mandatory contributions and surcharges in arrears
Imposing financial penalties on non-compliant employers
Prosecuting non-compliant employers or persons, including their officers, directors and partners

Penalties

MPFA may initiate criminal prosecution against non-compliant employers. The following are the relevant penalties:

Type of Employer Non-compliance	Penalty
Failure to enrol employees in an MPF scheme	Maximum penalty of a $350,000 fine and imprisonment for three years
Failure to pay mandatory contributions to trustees* (having deducted 5% from employees’ relevant income)	Maximum penalty of a $450,000 fine and imprisonment for four years
Failure to pay mandatory contributions to trustees* (without deducting 5% from employees’ relevant income)	Maximum penalty of a $350,000 fine and imprisonment for three years
Providing false or misleading information to trustees, eMPF Platform or MPFA	Maximum penalty of a $100,000 fine and imprisonment for one year on first conviction; maximum penalty of a $200,000 fine and imprisonment for two years on each subsequent conviction

MPFA may impose a financial penalty on non-compliant employers:

Type of Employer Non-compliance	Penalty
Failure to pay mandatory contributions to trustees* on time	Financial penalty of $5,000 or 10% of the amount due, whichever is greater
Failure to provide monthly pay-records to employees (except for casual employees participating in Industry Schemes)	Financial penalty of $10,000 for the first failure, $20,000 for the second failure and $50,000 for subsequent failures
Failure to notify trustees* in writing of an employee’s cessation of employment (except for casual employees participating in Industry Schemes)	Financial penalty of $5,000 for the first failure, $10,000 for the second failure and $20,000 for the subsequent failures
Failure to notify trustees* in writing of updates on employer information such as company name, address, telephone number and Email address	Financial penalty of $5,000 for the first failure, $10,000 for the second failure and $20,000 for subsequent failures

MPF trustees are required to report to MPFA any default contributions by employers. Based on the report, MPFA will issue payment notices to defaulting employers:

Type of Employer Non-compliance	Penalty
Failure to pay mandatory contributions to MPF trustees on time	Issue payment notice to employers to recover the default contributions and impose a surcharge calculated at 5% of the default amount. (Note: The surcharge in full will go to the affected employees' MPF accounts.)

What to do after receiving a payment notice

The payment notices issued by MPFA to employers are based on the reports provided by MPF trustees. The most common reasons for MPF trustees to report default contributions to MPFA are:

no contribution or insufficient contribution
late payment, i.e. the payment is received after the contribution day, even though the amount of contribution is correct
incomplete or inaccurate information in the remittance statement, making the MPF trustee unable to verify whether the amount of contribution the employer has paid is correct
failure to report the termination of an employee’s employment to the MPF trustee

Employers who fail to make contributions on time should contact their trustees* to settle the default contributions and surcharges as soon as possible. It is not necessary to wait for the payment notices from MPFA.

As MPFA does not possess any information about the contributions made by the employers to the trustees*, employers should contact their trustees* directly to confirm the surcharge amount and the administrative procedures for payment. They must settle both the outstanding contributions and the surcharges right away. Employers must also submit a separate remittance statement, setting out the names of the affected employees, the default amounts and the surcharge for each of the affected employees.

The surcharge is an amount equal to 5% of the outstanding contributions. Upon receipt of the default contributions and surcharges, the MPF trustee will allocate the money to the account of each of the affected employees based on the information shown in the remittance statements provided by employers.

If an employer fails to rectify the default contributions, MPFA may impose a financial penalty on the employer or initiate legal proceedings to recover the outstanding contributions and surcharges on behalf of the affected employee.

If the employer has paid contributions to the MPF trustee in full for each employee on time with complete and accurate remittance statements submitted, and/or that there is no contribution required to be paid for the employee(s) concerned, the employer may file an objection to MPFA within 14 days after the date of the payment notice by submitting a duly completed “Surcharge Objection Form” together with all the supporting documents. MPFA will request the MPF trustee to provide the relevant information and notify the employer of the results after reviewing the case.

* MPF trustees and their schemes will get onboard the eMPF Platform in sequence one by one. When the scheme has got onboard to the Platform, eMPF Company will utilize the eMPF Platform to perform the administration of the scheme, provide scheme administration services to employer, scheme member and self-employed person and handle the service instructions. From then on, employer, scheme member and self-employed person can manage your MPF on the eMPF Platform and should no longer submit service instructions to MPF trustee; the eMPF Platform will provide the relevant information and/or documents to you directly. Please visit eMPF Website (www.empf.org.hk) for the onboarding timeline of MPF scheme(s) and the relevant information.