Sa Sa International Holdings chairman Simon Kwok Siu-ming was given the green light by a judge yesterday to recover the remains of HK$25 million drained from his account by a scheming personal assistant.
The plot concocted by Pauline Ang Su-wen and her fiance Ian Huang Yuan-yuan had 'virtually exhausted' Mr Kwok's personal account, Mr Justice William Stone said.
Mr Kwok's evidence was accepted 'without hesitation' by the judge who deemed the cosmetics company boss 'the victim of a skilful and well-planned fraud perpetrated by Ang and Huang acting in concert'.
In July last year, Ang induced Mr Kwok to sign a letter of authorisation which remitted US$3.2 million from his personal Hongkong Bank account to one in the Rothschild Bank in Zurich.
The money was put into an account under the name of Alidex, a company controlled by Huang.
This left Mr Kwok with only HK$6,000 in his bank account, the hearing was told.
The Alidex account was frozen - but not before US$300,000 had been withdrawn by the couple.