Our commercial litigators act on a wide variety of cases, many of which have involved landmark decisions. We handle a wide range of commercial and business-related disputes, including:

• Banking
• Breach of contract and negligence
• Commercial conspiracy and fraud
• Debt recovery
• Defamation
• Employment
• Family and matrimonial
• Injunction proceedings
• International trade
• Joint venture and franchise disputes
• Judicial review
• Landlord and tenant
• Shareholder disputes
• Professional negligence
• Restructuring and Insolvency
• Sale of goods and services
• Trusts

• Acting on a number of disputes concerning listed companies and intra-family disputes where typically the second or third generation of an entrepreneur’s family claims different entitlements in the family’s estate.
• Prevented the extension of a general asset freezing injunction issued by a creditor seeking to enforce a PRC judgment against the parent company. This case provided a unique opportunity to develop Hong Kong law on this issue, as previous decisions in the jurisdiction were limited and other common law jurisdictions had adopted varying approaches.
• Successfully advised and represented liquidators in obtaining disclosure and injunction orders against the bank accounts of a fraudster and connected parties in Hong Kong, resulting in the discovery and freezing of over £12 million.
• Applying for a Judicial Review of Securities and Futures Commission’s refusal to investigate complaints lodged against a Hong Kong listed company.
• Acting in shareholder and monetary disputes concerning the world’s leading classical music organisations, and the world’s leading classical music label and global distributor of music with millions of digital tracks available globally. Headquartered in Hong Kong, it owns or operates numerous subsidiaries, from the UK to Germany, from Sweden to China, from the US to Korea, and the litigation was hotly contested spanning multiple jurisdictions, involving shareholder disputes, debt claims, unfair prejudice and boardroom shenanigans.
• Acting in an international money laundering case involving the authorities in Australia and in Hong Kong.
• Involved in a shareholders’ dispute concerning a company whose multi-billion dollar principal business is organising international air races, acting for the then majority shareholder whose shareholding was subsequently lost following alleged forgery.
• Advising the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants on disciplinary proceedings against a prominent accounting firm.

• Acting in several minority shareholder protection actions resulting in a number of winding-up petitions based upon just and equitable grounds, including recently for a prominent Hong Kong toy manufacturer.
• Involved for various clients in obtaining local judgments to enforce arbitral awards, issued by tribunals based in Hong Kong, the PRC and elsewhere, and subsequent enforcement.
• Acting for Micro-Pak, for over 25 years, a multibillion‑US‑dollar global leader in anti‑microbial materials, in protecting its trademark portfolio across the PRC and 28 other jurisdictions, pursuing infringers whose conduct has caused millions in lost business value, and securing successful civil and administrative outcomes including the invalidation of counterfeiters’ marks.
• The firm successfully defended ultra-high-net-worth clients against a globally coordinated, politically motivated litigation campaign, stemming from unsubstantiated corruption allegations against Mongolia’s former prime minister. Acting as global lead counsel across multiple jurisdictions, we defeated a series of ex parte asset-freezing injunctions—obtained on misrepresented records—and secured full discharges.
• Assisting an overseas University with the tracing and recovery of CAD$11.8 million misappropriated through cyber fraud.
• Acting for a shareholder in a well-known, long-lasting and cross border shareholders’ dispute in relation to the PRC cement sector, involving complex issues on conspiracy to defraud, dispute on jurisdiction, undertakings to the Court, and limitation periods.
• Acting for a long-established Hong Kong primary and junior school dealing with crisis management and reputational risk following the revelation of alleged sexual improprieties.
• Representing a global private markets investment management firm in Singapore to apply for disclosure orders and gagging orders against several major banks in Hong Kong to assist in the investigation of the flow of investment funds on a confidential basis.
• Frequently acting for overseas payers in applying for urgent asset freezing injunctions against account holders in Hong Kong in fraudulent transactions and seeking corresponding disclosure orders against the banks involved for tracing claims.
• Acting for an overseas creditor enforcing a multi-millions overseas judgment under common law in Hong Kong, freezing bank funds held by a nominee, successfully resisted security for costs application and obtaining judgment against the nominee after trial.
• Acting for a leading PRC software provider (a subsidiary of a Hong Kong-listed company) in proceedings commenced in Hong Kong by a leading US software provider for breach of copyright.
• Acting for two UK plaintiffs seeking damages against a Hong Kong company for breaches of duty as agent, including failure to obtain the best prices available for products sold in the PRC and failing to disclose its interest in the PRC factory introduced by the agent to manufacture one of the plaintiff’s products.
• Representing a licensed person in respect of disciplinary proceedings by the SFC in respect of an alleged breach of Code of Conduct for Persons Licensed by or Registered with the SFC, resulting in a landmark decision that is the first occasion that the Securities and Futures Appeals Tribunal (SFAT) has reversed a disciplinary decision by the SFC on both culpability and penalty, since the SFAT’s establishment.

• Acting for a surety in defending a claim wrongfully made against a performance bond. That bond had been issued for a regionally significant project where the main contractor had become insolvent before completion. This case upheld the Surety’s position that the demand made should be compliant with the wording of the bond and so could not cover future, unquantified losses.

• Acting for a seller seeking payment from a buyer who refused to pay for goods that were not delivered due to an alleged Act of God destroying the factory that produced the goods; both parties were based outside Hong Kong while the agreement between the two parties was governed by Hong Kong law.
• Successfully acting for the Plaintiff in the landmark case of Field v Barber, establishing it as the leading case on financial advisory negligence in Hong Kong.
• Advising a Belgian corporate shareholder in a cross-border shareholders’ dispute with a Russian company with a joint venture operating in Vietnam, involving the extension of the common law in Hong Kong as regards unfairly prejudicial conduct.
• Representing the intended administrator of an estate estimated at around HK$100 million in a contentious dispute between the whole siblings and the half-blood siblings, children of the deceased’s concubine.
• In a significant white-collar criminal trial that ran over 20 days we successfully achieved the acquittal for a Defendant in a well-publicised criminal prosecution relating to alleged fraud involving the substitution of concrete materials in a very large infrastructure project of substantial public interest.
• Acting for a defunct crypto currency exchange to pursue claims against former director for misappropriation of assets and diversion of business as well as to set aside settlement agreement improperly settling multimillion dollar arbitration claim.

• The Firm is experienced in assisting clients in obtaining local judgments to enforce arbitral awards, whether they were issued by tribunals based in Hong Kong, the PRC or elsewhere, and to enforce such judgments.
• Acting in the recovery of sums lent in relation to several project developments located in the United Kingdom. This involved the appointment of both receivers and liquidators over the borrowing entities and their assets in the BVI and United Kingdom. These appointments were made in order to secure, manage, and then dispose of the secured assets, including attaining the completion of the underlying projects to enhance the recoveries made.