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Legal Updates
Guilty plea discounts in sentencing guidelines for Hong Kong
In the appeal case of HKSAR v Ngo Van Nam CACC 418/2014, the Court of Appeal set down new guidelines for determining the amount of discount in sentence to be given to a defendant for a guilty plea. Prior to this decision a defendant received…Read More
Legal update: An introduction to Parental Alienation
Introduction Parental alienation refers to alignment of a child with one parent whilst rejecting a relationship with the other “without legitimate justification”1. This often results from the continued denigration of one parent by the other to the child / children of the family. In doing…Read More
Legal update: Stored Value Facilities: Are you ready for the 13 November 2016 deadline?
With the rapid development and growth of non-traditional and digital payment and settlement facilities in recent years, a new regulatory regime was needed in Hong Kong to protect users of stored value facilities (“SVFs”). In particular, regulators wanted to ensure that issuers and operators of…Read More
An introduction to company mergers in Hong Kong
Introduction Generally speaking from a corporate law perspective a merger or amalgamation is a legal process under which the assets and liabilities of two or more companies merge and are brought under one of the original companies or a newly incorporated company (as the case…Read More
An introduction to the legal aspects of illegal betting
International and domestic crackdown on illegal gambling on the Euro 2016 Championship and the Copa d’America football competitions reached headlines that summer. In late July 2016 Hong Kong Police announced that HK$586 million was seized and 103 arrests were made during the European Championship from…Read More
Legal update: An introduction to the legal aspects of match-fixing in sport
As illegal gambling has grown so has the awareness by local and international law enforcement agencies of the link between illegal gambling, organized crime and match-fixing and the severity of the match fixing. For instance in 2014 fifteen of the member states of the Council…Read More
Legal update: Escaping the abscondee regime – Bankruptcy (Amendment) Ordinance 2016
A bankrupt’s successful 2006 Court of Appeal1 challenge to the “abscondee” provisions in the Bankruptcy Ordinance effectively forced LegCo to tighten up one of the loopholes plaguing the current legislation. As a result, the Bankruptcy (Amendment) Ordinance became law earlier this year and will come…Read More
Why appoint an Enduring Power of Attorney?
Individuals can make arrangements to appoint other persons responsible in the event that a loss of mental capacity causes an inability to manage his or her own financial affairs such as in the case of dementia. A document known as Enduring Power of Attorney (“EPOA”)…Read More
Legal update: Specialist Tribunals and Boards in Hong Kong
Many of the administrative and legal decisions that affect closely the lives of residents of Hong Kong and businesses that operate in Hong Kong are not made in the courts but are given in specialist tribunals or other bodies created by statute to deal with…Read More
Legal update: The Draft Code of Practice for Employment Agencies
The Labour Department is conducting a consultation on a draft Code of Practice for Employment Agencies. Through promulgating the Code for the industry’s compliance, the Labour Department aims to promote professionalism and quality services in the employment agencies industry. Members of the public can obtain…Read More
Ancillary relief: the case of short marriage between young couples without children
The Court of Appeal judgement in AVT v VNT [2015] HKEC 1298 is a good example of the departure from equal sharing of matrimonial assets in the case of a short and childless marriage. This case concerns a medium-sized estate and a comfortable standard of…Read More
The Child Abduction Legislation
The Child Abduction Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance 2014 (the “Amendment Ordinance”) recently came into operation on 5 April 2016 to expand the scope of application of the current Child Abduction and Custody Ordinance (Cap 512) (“CACO”) to strengthen the powers of the courts and law…Read More
