It’s easy to talk about grand principles such as democracy and rule of law—and also easy to forget that they require individual human beings to put them into practice. David Webb, who died Tuesday age 60, was one of those people in Hong Kong.
David Webb in Hong Kong in May 2025
The retired investment banker lived most of his life in Hong Kong and was famous in the territory for the Webb-site, a comprehensive online repository for corporate records and miscellaneous government data.
The Webb-site has long been an essential resource for investors, journalists and citizens. It exposed obscure connections between companies and individuals. That’s no small feat in a region where many people share similar names, and where many Hong Kong-listed companies are based in less-transparent mainland China. It flagged potential corporate-governance problems, such as companies with a history of late regulatory filings.
Webb also took a close interest in the affairs of Hong Kong’s government. Few people in the territory understand the inner workings of the territory’s budget as Webb did. He cast his gaze far and wide; toward the end of his life he compiled data on the large number of Hong Kongers sitting in jail on pre-trial detention.
Such information can be hard enough to ferret out in democracies. But Webb persisted in his efforts even as Beijing eroded Hong Kong’s traditional freedoms and transparency. This wasn’t without risk, especially after Beijing imposed a National Security Law to restrict speech in the territory. Beijing has shown in many ways over the years that it views corporate data as sensitive material on the mainland and there’s a constant danger officials will start applying such rules to Hong Kong.
“Transparency is the lifeblood of free markets, and it’s also the lifeblood of policy reform,” Webb told these pages three months ago. “If you don’t have good data then you can’t have good policies.” He was too modest to add that if you don’t have good people to collect and disseminate it, you can’t have the good data.
Hong Kong is nothing but a rocky collection of islands. Its greatest asset has always been its people. That counts for its economic growth miracle, and now in its fight for its freedoms, too. David Webb was one of its greats.
