Hong Kong’s securities regulator said on Thursday it objected to a plan put forward by the city’s stock exchange to allow dual-class shares and other weighted-voting structures in certain circumstances, potentially dealing a fatal blow to the proposal.

In some jurisdictions, including the US, companies can set up such share structures to give more rights to one class of their investors over another. One recent prominent example was Chinese e-commerce major Alibaba Group Holding's listing in New York in September, raising $25 billion with a share structure that allows its partners to nominate the majority of the board in perpetuity.