24 Oct 2024
Defendant wrongfully terminated the Agreement and breached obligations to assess, inform and coordinate financing; those breaches caused foreseeable losses (repayment of first instalment, loss on bonds and wasted expenses), and the Plaintiffs are entitled to recover those losses with interest and costs.
30 Aug 2021
Because defendants defaulted on liability and the HK$2,500,000 was pleaded and established as Route Consideration forming part of the purchase price for business routes and goodwill, plaintiffs were entitled to recover that sum. No deduction was made for plaintiffs' four months' use because there was no evidence of any fixed term or measurable lifetime of the routes and no proper basis to apportion the one-off routes purchase price. Claims for December 2017 income and licence appreciation were inconsistent with awarding the Route Consideration and were inadequately proved, and therefore dismi…
6 May 2009
The court held that the defendant must pay the contractual deposit of US$20,000 but the plaintiff failed to prove a real and substantial chance that the Merchant Bank would have issued the guarantee and thus is not entitled to damages for loss of chance in respect of the US$180,000. The wasted expenditure claim was limited: the court awarded actual disbursements and a one‑third fraction of the plaintiff's assessed human resource expenditure since December 2005, totalling HK$267,800. Costs ordered nisi to be taxed on the District Court Scale.
12 Nov 2003
Application for leave to appeal was dismissed because the contested questions were fact-sensitive and the Court of Appeal's prior decision was based on the particular pleaded facts; the issues did not meet the s22(1)(b) threshold of being of great general or public importance and it was inappropriate to decide the points on scanty or assumed facts; whether wasted expenditure was caused by the contractor's breaches was a matter for trial.
10 Jun 2003
The Court refused to strike out the wasted expenditure claim and refused to determine clause 24 under Order 14A because causation and the question of abandonment are matters requiring factual investigation at trial; however the judge's exercise of discretion in refusing joinder was wrong because fairness and the need for full discovery justified joining OUB and OCBC, and accordingly the appeal is allowed in part: the joinder order is granted and the action is stayed until the two banks are joined; the remainder of the appeal is dismissed and the costs orders are adjusted as set out.
10 Sept 2002
Order 14A declined because the question whether clause 24 limits damages to additional completion costs is not a pure question of law and requires factual findings (notably whether the project was abandoned) which are absent on the material before the court; the strike out application failed because a claim for wasted expenditure is not inherently bad in law and the pleaded case sufficiently alleges breach, termination and causation which are matters for trial; the joinder/stay was refused because Maybank validly represents the syndicate, no good reason existed to exercise the court's discret…
25 Mar 1999
The court found the Plaintiff breached the contract by supplying defective watches; those breaches caused the Defendant's loss. The Defendant was entitled to recover loss of profit and wasted expenditure, subject to reasonable deductions for mitigation and set-off against the unpaid invoice. The counterclaim was quantified, converted to USD and HKD, interest awarded, and judgment entered for the Defendant in the net amount ordered.