Groom's poisonpen.com hard to stomach

Published: 12:00am, 15 Feb 2000

A groom who claims guests at his hotel wedding banquet suffered food poisoning has taken revenge on hotel owners Sun Hung Kai Properties by registering the Web site www.sunhungkai.com and using it to air his complaints.

Internet business consultant Julius Moltgen, 37, paid US$35 (HK$270) to register the site after failing to win an apology or compensation from the Royal Garden Hotel, in Mody Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, which denies it was responsible for any poisoning.

Mr Moltgen also has registered a second site - www.wwwsunevision.com - mimicking the property group's new Internet division SunEvision - which takes users to the site where he makes his complaints.

The site details his exchanges with the hotel, which he says ended when he found it would be too expensive to initiate a lawsuit.

Sun Hung Kai Properties, which has its own Web site at www.shkp.com.hk, said it was monitoring Mr Moltgen's activities and would take legal action if necessary. Mr Moltgen claims 16 of 67 guests at his wedding banquet at the Royal Garden Hotel in May last year later fell ill, one of them seriously.

He took legal advice and complained to the Urban Council, but inspectors who visited the hotel kitchens found nothing to back up his complaint.

Mr Moltgen said he was not now trying to seek compensation but to teach the property group, which launched SunEvision last month, the basics of e-commerce.

'This is not about money. I started this as one big joke. Sun Hung Kai Properties just launched this big hi-tech Internet business and it forgot to register its own name,' he said.

The hotel's lawyers wrote to Mr Moltgen last year, saying it had no intention of offering an apology or a settlement.

'We have referred the case to our lawyers and our management will meet to consider what course of action to take,' a hotel spokeswoman said.

Sun Hung Kai Properties said last night: 'SHKP has long been recognised in Hong Kong's business circle as the abbreviated form of Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. We believe our domain name www.shkp.com.hk can best represent our company.' Financial services firm Sun Hung Kai & Co, which is separately listed, said it was concerned about its name being used on a hostile Web site. 'We are an innocent bystander in all this,' a spokeswoman said.

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