13 Jan 2025
Leave to appeal refused because the plaintiff's grounds have no reasonable prospect of success, are barred by binding Court of Appeal judgments, and the judge's exercise of discretion on costs and on summary assessment was within the wide range of acceptable outcomes and not plainly wrong.
29 Nov 2024
The Court dismissed all appeals and refused all leave applications because the appellant's arguments were repetitions of points already considered and rejected by the lower courts, he had not obtained required leave for appeals against costs orders under Cap.4, he failed to show any legal error or reasonable prospect of success, and there was no basis to interfere with the trial judges' discretionary assessment of costs; accordingly the appellant must pay the respondent's costs assessed at HKD110,000.
30 Aug 2024
All four applications for leave to appeal were refused because the intended appeals had no reasonable prospect of success: the courts below acted within their discretion; the plaintiff abused ex parte procedure and made material non-disclosures or misleading statements; the plaintiff failed to show the high degree of assurance required to justify injunctions that would extinguish the defendant's lien; discovery and expert directions were appropriate and proportionate; and the case management decisions (including refusal to adjourn) were not plainly wrong.
30 Aug 2024
Leave to appeal in all four applications was refused because the intended appeals had no reasonable prospect of success: the plaintiff misused ex parte procedure, made material non-disclosures and false statements leading to abuse of process; interlocutory and case management decisions below (refusal/continuation of injunctions, refusal of adjournment, orders for discovery and expert directions, refusal of stay) were within the judges' discretion and not plainly wrong; damages were adequate and balance of convenience favoured the defendant (including protection of lien); costs were ordered on…
23 Nov 2023
With the benefit of hindsight Harris J was entitled to find the reconstitution order was wrongly granted because Shih-Hua did not provide the indemnity and adequate funding it undertook to provide, undermining the primary purpose of the order; ledgers and other evidence established a reasonably arguable case of loss so an inquiry as to damages should be ordered; the Court of Appeal found no error in law or in the exercise of judicial discretion and dismissed the appeal.
28 Apr 2023
The court found the plaintiff had poor prospects of success because an independent confidentiality clause already protected its interests and the alleged 'client connections' between schools and parents were not analogous to fragile commercial client relationships; the defendant maintained her employment and the undertakings did not require her to quit or amount to admission of liability; therefore the defendant was the effective winner and costs follow the event, ordering the plaintiff to pay the defendant's costs of the Summons.
19 Nov 2021
The court dismissed both summonses because the applicant failed to satisfy the Bonnard v Perryman criteria: he did not exclude the possibility of a successful defence (qualified privilege applied and was plausibly available), failed to demonstrate a real threat or intention to republish, and could not establish malice on interlocutory affidavit evidence; additionally the application to admit late police evidence failed Ladd v Marshall's first and second conditions (evidence obtainable with reasonable diligence and unlikely to change the interlocutory outcome).
2 Sept 2021
Security for costs was ordered because the plaintiff had unpaid accrued and assessed costs liabilities, insufficient paid‑up capital, no convincing evidence of current or expected ability to meet adverse costs, and third‑party funders were willing to fund pursuit of claims but not settlement of adverse costs; the court concluded the risk to defendants of being unable to recover costs outweighed the risk of stifling a genuine claim and therefore ordered security to the pre‑trial review stage in specified sums and summary assessed costs to be paid.
10 Jun 2021
The court dismissed the proposed amendments to introduce public law challenges to the validity of the search warrants and the 1217 interlocutory injunction application. Core reasons: challenges to the lawfulness of warrants belong to judicial review and cannot be mounted in ordinary civil originating summonses (jurisdiction and exclusivity principle); the proposed amendments were abusive and out of time; the alleged unlawfulness grounds were either technical or without merit; orders for return of materials on irrelevance or injunctions would improperly prejudice ongoing criminal investigation…
24 Mar 2021
The court found the plaintiff had standing and, applying the appropriate merits threshold, concluded there was sufficient and cogent evidence (including absence of contemporaneous board documentation, inadequate explanatory materials and commercial improbabilities) to infer the board's primary purpose in proposing the allotment was improper; damages were inadequate and the balance of convenience favoured preserving the status quo, so the interlocutory injunction restraining implementation of the allotment was continued.