Reporters turned up at 10.30am yesterday to cover four consecutive annual meetings being held by the New World Group. But something exciting happened at the first meeting, the AGM of New World company Pacific Ports. A minority shareholder, represented by someone from the stock clearing house Central Clearing and Settlement System (CCASS), tried to vote down several routine resolutions. One would authorise the board to fix their remuneration and another dealt with reappointing auditors - the kind of resolutions passed at every AGM. The CCASS voter held just seven million shares. A big voter, representing the Cheng family's Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, was voting on behalf of 1.5 billion shares. The result? Ninety-six per cent for the resolutions and just 4 per cent against. We noticed a look of relief on the face of Alvin Wong Tak-wai, partner in New World auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers. When the meeting ended, excited reporters quizzed the CCASS voter on the identity of the mystery minority, but this was confidential. Pacific Ports chairman Henry Cheng Kar-shun said it was every minority shareholder's right to vote against company resolutions. We are sure Mr Cheng was sincere in expressing support for minority shareholders' rights. But super-sensitive corporate communications types then barred reporters from the other New World group AGMS scheduled for the day. 'We don't want reporters to harass minority shareholders,' they told us. Don't go there: An airline industry reader has sought Lai See's assistance in sorting out the ongoing resistance to airport charges at Tokyo's Narita airport, which are famously the highest in the world. Airline lobby group IATA, less commonly known as the International Air Transport Association, has invested thousands of man hours in researching and writing letters on this most contentious of issues. The Japanese authorities in charge of the Narita charges have also had their attention seriously diverted from their day jobs by the issue. They have to respond carefully to every complaint. This involves translators, public relations spin doctors, the works. Well folks, Lai See spent 20 minutes pondering the pros and cons of this very serious issue in the office yesterday. We wanted to back up our opinion with a few worthy statistics, but the IATA Web site was playing up. Not to worry, our opinion still holds, and it is this. Message to airlines: if you think Narita is too expensive, just stop flying there. Or have we missed something? Unhappy association: Financial management company Allen Perkins might be all washed up nowadays but its image lives on, notably on the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club Web site at www.rhkyc.org.hk/ sponsorship.htm There is the Allen Perkins logo in full colour, labelled 'Allen Perkins Spring Regatta 2001'. We wonder if the yacht club is proud of its association with Allen Perkins, whose reputation appears to have sunk out of sight. An alert sea-faring reader told us: 'Allen Perkins used to spend quite a lot of money sponsoring some yacht club regattas. They seem to have ceased this activity. Perhaps the bosses have sailed away?' No laughing matter: A reader who prefers to be identified just by his first name, Robert, has drawn our attention to a Web site dedicated to people who actually respond to Nigerian scam e-mail messages. Now Lai See would never recommend any kind of response to these fraudsters. In a previous item we alerted readers to the US Secret Service site dedicated to scammers at www.secretservice.gov/ alert419.shtml Please go there before checking out the site www.scamorama.com . Some people have had some fun replying to the scammers, but never, ever Lai See , who knows when something is beyond a joke. Graphic: whee27gbz