 was recently a guest speaker at the Hong Kong Trustees’ Association 35

 Anniversary Conference titled “35 years of Transformation in the Hong Kong Trust Industry”, where he addressed recent jurisprudential developments in the private wealth and trust sphere and practical perspectives on common issues encountered by trustees in the administration of trust.

Special thanks to the Hong Kong Trustees’ Association for the invitation and organisation of the event.

When will breaches of document production orders result in liability for contempt of court? What if subsequent efforts are made to comply and to “purge” the contempt? These questions were addressed by the Court in 

Luen Tat Watch Brand Manufacturer Ltd v Stephen Liu Yiu Keung & Anor

 Defendants (“Ds”) were the former joint and several liquidators of the plaintiff. In 2020, following Ds’ removal, the Plaintiff (“P”) was granted an order for the return by 28 April 2021 of certain documents kept by Ds during their administration of the liquidation. P alleged that Ds failed to comply with that order and therefore commenced contempt proceedings against Ds.

Following an 8-day trial, Winnie Tsui J held that:

(1) Ds were in breach of the order. Notwithstanding the enormous scale of the documents to be handed over, it was within Ds’ power to comply by 28 April 2021, because they could have adopted and executed a proper methodology which was capable of retrieving all the requested documents.

(2) Ds had the requisite state of mind in respect of some of the breaches because Ds had not taken all reasonable steps to comply with the order, save that in respect of some of the missing documents the breach was accidental and unintentional.

(3) However, the contempt had been purged by Ds’ production of two further tranches of documents in December 2021 and July 2023. That the contempt had been purged was relevant not only to mitigation but also to liability. If contempt had been purged, it was open to the Court to make no order on the Originating Summons despite a finding of contempt.

Tsui J therefore made no order on P’s committal application, save that P’s costs should be bone by Ds on an indemnity basis.

 and Martin Kok, instructed by Joseph S.C. Chan & Co, acted for the plaintiff.

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Jonathan Ng at the Hong Kong Trustees’ Association 35th Anniversary Conference

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