Two years on and Li will again sit at the high table at Grosvenor House along with the new management team installed after the purchase.

He, and the massed ranks of the LME brokerage community seated around him, may well be minded of the witticism penned by Canadian playwright Raymond Hull. "All marriages are happy. It's the living together afterward that causes all the trouble."

This marriage has not got off to the best of starts.

HKEx has found itself embroiled in the toxic legacy of the LME's dysfunctional warehousing system, spending much money and time fighting off a flurry of lawsuits and multiple regulatory pressures.

The mood among the LME's brokers is sombre as they face up to the reality of a new fee structure, which, according to Triland Metals chief operating officer Martin Pratt, will "undoubtedly force metal market participants to carefully review their business models and trading relationships".

The exchange's swoop on the platinum and palladium price "fixes", however, could be a sign that things may be about to get better for both partners in this East-West marriage.

The real issue with the new commercialisation strategy, as HKEx calls it, is the legacy of the totally non-commercial ways of the past, such as brokers not charging customers for short-dated trades. That will have to change and some of the public statements made since the new fees were announced late last month may be more calculated at preparing clients for those changes than having a swipe at the exchange's management.

HKEx may have more justified grounds for grievance with its new partner.

It probably underestimated just how toxic was the debate about the aluminium load-out queues at some LME warehouses.

It almost certainly did not expect to spend quite as much time in law courts, both in the United States and Britain, as it has done in the past few years.

From a public relations perspective, it has been an ordeal by fire and the spate of global headlines containing the words "LME", "warehousing" and "manipulation" has pushed any idea of extending the LME's warehousing network into China firmly off the agenda.

From a commercial perspective, the LME now also has a major new challenge to its franchise in the global aluminium market in the form of a rival contract from CME Group.

The growth in LME trading volumes has slowed sharply this year to just 3.7 per cent over January-September from 7.1 per cent last year. Indeed, it looks set to be the third consecutive year of slower growth since the boom in 2011. That translates into less revenue growth for everyone: brokers, the LME and HKEx.

This reflects market realities such as the lacklustre rangebound trading that has characterised the copper market for much of the year.

Iron ore trading is booming on the Singapore Exchange and the Dalian Commodity Exchange, both of which have benefited from pricing volatility in China's largest metallic import market by volume.

The time appears right for HKEx to deliver on its promise to use the LME's metals franchise as a way of leveraging its existing position as gateway through China's Great Currency Wall.

It is preparing to do so through the relaunch of yuan-denominated "mini" contracts derived from the LME's copper, aluminium and zinc contracts.

Other products will follow, first and foremost physical premium contracts, although there is a certain irony in the LME offering a product to fill a pricing gap arguably created by its own warehousing problems.

It will be what comes then that really determines how this marriage fares.