13 Jul 2012
There was no bona fide dispute of substance as to the debt claimed by Melco; the Debtor was insolvent; Melco was a creditor entitled to present a bankruptcy petition; accordingly a bankruptcy order was made on Melco's petition and the Debtor's petition was dismissed as unnecessary.
13 Jul 2012
Melco was a creditor entitled to present the petition; there was no bona fide dispute of substance as to the debt relied upon; presentation of the petition was not an abuse of process; accordingly a bankruptcy order was made on Melco's petition and the Debtor's own petition was dismissed.
24 Jun 1999
The Court held the District Court's concurrent 3-year sentences were manifestly inadequate given the nearly HK$3 million theft and the serious breach of trust; applying the principles in Clark (and Barrick by analogy) and the totality principle, the appropriate global sentence is four years' imprisonment, and therefore the original sentences are quashed and substituted with four-year concurrent terms.
2 Mar 1999
The Court of Appeal held the original sentence was manifestly inadequate given the seriousness, scale (approximately HKD 100,000,000 and hundreds of depositors) and need for deterrence; it set a proper starting point of four years, allowed a one-third reduction for the guilty plea and a further three-month reduction, and substituted a sentence of 29 months' imprisonment while upholding the criminal bankruptcy order under s84A(3).
19 Apr 1996
The court held the trial judge erred in ordering repayment of the full proceeds because she had no basis to order more than money shown to be in the applicant's possession (only $1,400,000 was demonstrated), and she had no authority to impose a further sentence of imprisonment in default of restitution; accordingly the restitution order and the default imprisonment were rescinded while the substantive concurrent custodial sentences (three years ten months) and the criminal bankruptcy order were upheld because the bankruptcy order was not appealable under s.84B.
11 Oct 1990
Because the robbery conviction was quashed, the Court was bound under the Ordinance to rescind the Criminal Bankruptcy Order as against Fung To-shan; the Court declined to decide whether s84B(2) permits amendment to refer to a different subsisting conviction in the absence of any Crown application for such relief.
11 Aug 1984
Because the defendant's offences resulted in aggregate financial loss of $298,935.13, exceeding the statutory threshold of $150,000, and the discretionary criteria of public interest, asset tracing and potential distribution to victims were satisfied per authorities, the court had jurisdiction and properly exercised its discretion to make a criminal bankruptcy order.