Nina Wang bids to recover legal costs

Bill for her epic inheritance battle runs into millions of dollars

Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum has commenced proceedings to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in costs associated with the eight-year legal battle over her late husband's HK$24 billion estate.

The case is being handled by the Court of Final Appeal, which last year affirmed that Teddy Wang Teh-huei had signed a will leaving everything to his wife.

The will, executed about a month before Teddy Wang's kidnapping in 1990, replaced one he wrote in 1968 that left everything to his father, Wang Din-shin, 93.

Mrs Wang is seeking an order for all costs associated with the marathon legal battle she waged in defence of allegations by Wang Din-shin that the 1990 will was a forgery.

Aside from the present hearing and myriad interlocutory actions surrounding each phase of the tussle, the case had spent 174 days in the Court of First Instance, 28 days in the Court of Appeal and 10 days in the Court of Final Appeal. As the longest civil action in the city's history, the costs associated with it are said to run to several hundred million dollars.

Although Mrs Wang previously stated that she had no intention of forcing Wang Din-shin - who lives on a pension supplied by the estate - to pay up, her counsel said the order was necessary in case the suspected backers of her father-in-law attempted to recoup some of their lost investment.