bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Not even the Wangs' lawyers have a clue about how much the legal costs for the eight-year court battle will be, but one word appears to sum it up: astronomical.

The list of lawyers engaged by Nina Wang reads like a who's who of Hong Kong's legal community, with two former solicitors-general and several senior and queen's counsels on her team.

Michael Thomas SC, Daniel Fung Wah-kin SC,  Clive Grossman SC,  Martin Lee Chu-ming SC  and Geoffrey Vos QC  were some of the top barristers she hired.

Barrister Albert Tsang Hon-kin,  who represented Wang Din-shin,  conservatively estimated 'tens of millions' for his client, but said  'we have not received a cent so far'.

Solicitors for Nina Wang  at Johnson, Stokes and Master said they could not reveal a reliable estimate last night, but prominent lawyer Andrew Lam Ping-cheung  shed some speculative light on costs.

Mr Lam said he hired Mr Lee 15 years ago, when he  charged $500,000 for the brief, which includes the first day of trial plus preparatory work. Mr Fung, meanwhile, was reportedly paid a $1 million lump sum for this case, plus at least $90,000 a day as a 'refresher'.

'You're talking about astronomical amounts of money - senior counsel charge a refresher on a daily basis of about $120,000. Then you have junior counsel and solicitors. Solicitors are allowed to charge a maximum of $4,500 per hour, depending on their number of years in practice,' Mr Lam said.

'Then you have charges for clerks, letters written, expert witnesses flown in, accommodation  ... for a 172-day trial in the High Court, followed by two more levels of court. That is a lot of money.'

Total costs for both sides were estimated to run into hundreds of millions. One estimate at the end of the  probate case was that the legal fees were more than $200 million.

Mr Tsang said his team would argue that costs should be borne by the estate.



Even richest woman may feel pinch of court costs