A tycoon is accused of stealing more than US$800 million from his international conglomerate and bankrupting the company, while another businessman allegedly conspires to hide the rest of the failed firm's assets from its creditors.
The affair leads to a High Court trial, which collapses. The conglomerate's Big Four auditor is said to have fabricated documents, then gets raided by the anti-fraud police and sees one of its partners arrested.
The events look like scenes from a crime thriller, but the saga of Akai Holdings, the former empire of disgraced entrepreneur James Ting that collapsed in 2000, is very real and has shaken the foundations of corporate Hong Kong, heightening fears about freewheeling tycoons and the auditors and regulators that are meant to protect companies' shareholders and lenders.
The scandal resurfaced in a High Court case against Akai's former auditor, Ernst & Young Hong Kong, last month. The claimants, Akai's liquidators, accused the auditor of tampering with and faking audit files to shield itself from the US$1 billion negligence claim.
The Commercial Crime Bureau has launched a fraud investigation into Ernst & Young and late last month arrested Edmund Dang, one of its partners, who was freed on bail without being charged.
Yesterday, in a separate trial, Hong Kong tycoon Christopher Ho Wing-on settled a High Court case where Akai's liquidators had accused him of misappropriating the failed electronics firm's assets into his Grande Holdings vehicle in 1999, so Akai's creditors could not retrieve any money.
Like most crime thrillers, this saga has an unlikely, maverick hero - Cosimo Borrelli, Akai's Italian-Australian liquidator.