In Joint Provisional Liquidators of Moody Technology Holdings Ltd [2020] HKCFI 416, the Hong Kong Court of First Instance (the “Hong Kong Court”) granted a recognition order to foreign provisional liquidators who were appointed on a soft-touch basis, to explore and facilitate the restructuring of a company. The order was made despite soft-touch provisional liquidation … Read more
The principle in ex parte James, under which the Court will not permit its officers (such as a liquidator) to act in a way which, although lawful, does not accord with the standards of right-thinking people, has recently been clarified by the English Court of Appeal in Lehman Brothers Australia Limited (in liquidation) v Edward … Read more
COVID-19 has been affecting life and businesses around the globe. The developments over the last few days have been moving fast: the World Health Organisation declared the disease as pandemic, the US has restricted travel from certain countries and many countries are on either lockdown or self-isolation rules. A key and primary focus of businesses … Read more
From 12 September 2020, all international settlement agreements resulting from mediation will potentially be able to be enforced under the new Singapore Convention, regardless of where in the world the mediation took place. Article 14 of the Singapore Convention provides that it will enter into force six months after three signatory states have ratified it … Read more
Yesterday, on 25 February 2020, Singapore and Fiji became the first two countries to deposit at the United Nations Headquarters their instruments of ratification of the Singapore Convention, more formally known as the United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation. Singapore and Fiji have taken an important step towards bringing the Singapore … Read more
Clients and legal practitioners often come across a fairly common question during the course of discovery/disclosure in litigation or arbitration: is the document privileged? Legal professional privilege is a fundamental and constitutionally guaranteed right in Hong Kong and, generally speaking, can be split into two branches: litigation privilege and legal advice privilege. Legal advice privilege … Read more
In a long-awaited development of cross-border insolvency cooperation between Hong Kong and Mainland China, the Hong Kong Court has granted recognition and assistance to Mainland liquidators for the first time in Joint and Several Liquidators of CEFC Shanghai International Group Ltd [2020] HKCFI 167. Background CEFC Shanghai International Group Ltd (“CEFC“), a company incorporated in … Read more
As part of the Legislative Council’s Information Technology Strategy Plan, The Court Proceedings (Electronic Technology) Bill (Bill), which was gazetted on 27 December 2019 and passed through the First Reading stage on 8 January 2020, takes the Hong Kong courts a step closer to being paperless. The Bill facilitates the filing and sending of … Read more
In Hong Ziyun v Chan Kwan Ming [2019] HKCFI 2125, the Court of First Instance considered the relevant jurisdiction applicable to a host of related loan documents where only one of the documents contained an express jurisdiction clause (in favour of the court of Xiamen in Mainland China). The defendants applied for a stay of … Read more
