Court rejects Florence Tsang's bid for documents
The Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed an application by the ex-wife of a tycoon to make public a judgment in which she got HK$1.2 billion in a divorce settlement.
The judgment was given last December in the legal battle between solicitor Florence Tsang Chiu-wing and her ex-husband, Samathur Li Kin-kan, son of property tycoon Samuel Lee Tak-yee. The father and son have appealed. The amount was later raised to HK$1.4 billion, according to their appeal application documents.
Tsang had claimed HK$5.5 billion in the lawsuit seeking ancillary relief following her divorce from Li in 2008.
The judge had ruled that Tsang was entitled to maintain a lifestyle that she had become accustomed to, and found that the men had forged a loan agreement that transferred virtually all of the husband's assets to his father. He also referred the case to the Director of Public Prosecution for criminal investigation.
The judgment had been withheld from the public domain although some details were made available.
Yesterday, Tsang asked the court to make the written judgment and other documents public so she could use them to seek assets she was awarded in foreign courts.
The court dismissed her application. "We are not satisfied that this is a case where we have jurisdiction," Mr Justice Johnson Lam Man-hon said.
The court is scheduled to hand down its reasons for the decision on Monday. Mr Justice Aarif Barma was also sitting.
Tsang and Li met in 1995 in London and married in 2000. They separated in 2008. In the lead-up to the split, Tsang had turned down Li's ultimatum to have an abortion and she discovered he had had an affair.
The father - also known as Samuel Tak Lee - is the boss of Prudential Enterprise, which owns the Prudential Hotel in Jordan.
