New | Yung Kee family feud festers on over legal technicalities
Lawyers representing Leung Sui-kwan, whose husband was a 45pc shareholder in the famed roast goose restaurant in Central, appealed against the dismissal of an order to reassign shares or wind up the company
The widow of the late Yung Kee shareholder Kinsen Kam Kwan-sing on Tuesday appealed against the dismissal of a petition to wind-up the company behind the famed roast goose restaurant in Central.
Lawyers for Leung Sui-kwan, as representative of Kinsen Kam’s estate, are trying to persuade the Court of Appeal that Yung Kee Holdings, a holding company for the restaurant, has ‘sufficient connection’ with Hong Kong and that therefore the court can deal with their wind-up application.
The late Kinsen filed a petition with the court to force his estranged brother Ronald Kam Kwan-lai to buy his 45 per cent stake at a price to be determined by the court or, alternatively, to permit him to buy Ronald’s 45 per cent shareholding.
In the absence of such an order, Kinsen wanted Yung Kee Holdings to be wound up.
On Tuesday, lawyers for Leung pointed out that there was more than HK$880 million in cash in Yung Kee Holdings’ bank account in Hong Kong and that the Yung Kee building on Wellington Street was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
In addition, the company’s affairs have been managed by its directors at the Yung Kee Building office in Central, the court heard, and all meetings of its board of directors were also held there.
”These [circumstances] point to Hong Kong [as] being a jurisdiction with sufficient connection,” Barrister Jat Sew-tong SC, said.
In cross appeal, Ronald contended that it was wrong for the trial to find that Kinsen had been “unfairly prejudiced” by him and his children.
In his the judgment, the trial judge made clear that if it were not for the sufficient connection technicality, he would have ordered Ronald’s camp to buy Kinsen’s shares because Kinsen had been “unfairly prejudiced”.
Outside the court, Kinsen’s second son, Hardy, said: “We are confident that we will win the appeal”.
Hardy said he and his elder brother were identifying a place to open a restaurant, which would probably in Hong Kong.
