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Legal Updates
Children Mental Health Awareness Week – Let’s Connect: Steps to minimise the impact of separation and divorce on a child
The past week was Children’s Mental Health Week in the UK with the theme of “Let’s Connect”. I was fortunate to attend a school event designed to bring this to the attention of parents and was interested to hear from an esteemed panel of Hong…Read More
“No-Fault Divorce” in England: should Hong Kong follow suit?
2022 was a big year for divorce law in England & Wales. With the introduction of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 coming into force on 6 April 2022, anyone seeking to petition for divorce or dissolution of marriage no longer has to apportion…Read More
Transgender appellants win appeal in Q, Tse Henry Edward v Commissioner of Registration [2023] HKCFA 4
The Court of Final Appeal handed down a landmark ruling that a policy on HKID card amendment adopted by the Commissioner of Registration was unconstitutional. The Commissioner of Registration adopts a policy which requires individuals to have completed full sex reassignment surgery if they seek…Read More
Arrest of juveniles
What will happen if your children or child is arrested by the police? An overview of the rights of juveniles under arrest. Introduction We often hear of arrest of youngsters in Hong Kong. In this article, we briefly discuss how the legal system processes those…Read More
Hong Kong Cookies Regulation
Partner Pádraig Walsh provides the following overview on Hong Kong Cookies Regulation as part of a coordinated international review published in PIN CODE. Citation: Gary CYWIE, Charles MORGAN, Fabrice PERBOST, Alexander BRANDT, Padraig WALSH, Jun YANG and Eduardo USTARAN, ‘Cookies Regulations: An International Outlook’, Revue…Read More
Substantial connection in jurisdictional matters – no separate test applied to parties without family in Hong Kong says the Court of Appeal in JQ v CLH CACV 350/2021
On 27 May 2021, His Honour Judge I Wong dismissed the Husband’s challenge against Hong Kong having jurisdiction over the Wife’s divorce petition. The Husband appealed. CACV 350/2021 was heard before Hon Chow JA, Hon Barma and Chow JJA in the Court of Appeal. The…Read More
The Alternative to Class Action Litigation in Hong Kong
Class actions are not recognised by Hong Kong Courts, so, an individual’s right of action may not be as effective as it might otherwise be. It is for this reason that jurisdictions which do not recognise class actions often have a counterbalance in strong regulation…Read More
Service by NFT – Court serves defendants by ‘airdrop’ into digital wallet
BACKGROUND In D’Aloia v (1) Persons Unknown and (2) Binance Holdings Limited and others, the High Court of England and Wales granted the claimant permission to serve court proceedings on ‘persons unknown’ over blockchain, by way of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs NFTs are a relatively…Read More
Data Transfers: Hong Kong personal data importers and transfer impact assessments
When a Hong Kong personal data importer receives personal data from a data exporter in another location, it is becoming increasingly common for the data exporter to carry out an assessment of the levels of protection in Hong Kong available for the personal data and…Read More
Data Transfers: The curious case of cross-border data transfers in Hong Kong
The Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (the “PDPO”) was passed in 1995 and took effect from December 1996. One of its key provisions was a restriction on cross-border data transfers in section 33. More than 25 years later, section 33 is still not yet in operation….Read More
Legal Update: Developments in virtual asset regulation in Hong Kong
In this snapshot legal update, we report on various announcements and policy updates announced during Hong Kong FintechWeek in respect of virtual assets (“VA”). On 31 October 2022, the Securities and Futures Commission (“SFC”) issued a circular on virtual asset futures exchange-traded funds (“VA Futures…Read More
Questions regarding same-sex marriage to be heard in the Court of Final Appeal
On 10 November 2022, the Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal against its judgment in Sham Tsz Kit (岑子杰) v Secretary for Justice [2022] HKCA 1247. The Court of First Instance had dismissed Mr Sham’s application for judicial review, which argued that the (1)…Read More
