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Defendants get suspended jail term but expert says pimping law is out of date

Two men who established a popular online prostitutes' directory yesterday were handed suspended jail terms and $100,000 fines after being found guilty of conspiring to live off the earnings of prostitution.

It was the first time the publishers of advertisements for prostitution had been targeted for prosecution, and the case may have an impact on other providers of advertising space, both online and in more traditional media.

At the same time, a legal expert has warned the case raises  questions about the adequacy of laws surrounding prostitution.

Cheung Ming-man, 37,  and Chan Sai-Ngan, 28,  were found guilty in the District Court of one count each of conspiracy to live off the earnings of prostitution arising from ads that appeared on their website, www.sex141.com, between March and December 2003.

Judge Abu Bakar bin Wahab  sentenced them to eight months in prison, with the sentence suspended for two years, and fined them $100,000.

The two men were caught up in a 2003 Independent Commission Against Corruption investigation   that centred around police officers who were receiving kickbacks from brothel owners in return for warning them of raids.

'The defendants lived parasitically on  the earnings of a large number of prostitutes,'  Judge Wahab said.

Hong Kong law does not prohibit prostitution. But it is illegal to use signs to advertise it or for third parties to derive benefit from someone's employment as a sex worker.

Prostitutes paid a flat monthly fee to advertise on the site. At one point the site, which  was said to be receiving 100,000 page views a day,  generated enough revenue to employ 10 people.

While Cheung and Chan are no longer associated with it, sex141.com is still operating, as are a number of other sites offering the  same service.  A number of newspapers and magazines also carry sex workers' ads.

Simon Young,  an associate professor at Hong Kong University's law faculty,  said the conviction highlighted a deficiency in the laws surrounding prostitution.

'The law has failed to keep up with technology,  because it doesn't look like any of  Hong Kong's laws  suit this situation,' he said.

The law under which the men were prosecuted was meant to protect women from pimps, he said, but whether that was what Cheung and Chan were is debatable. Rather than pimps, they could be viewed as businessmen who offered a service to prostitutes  for a fee.

'This offence was never meant to capture genuine business transactions,' Mr Young said.

He  said that a  business transaction could not be  called  'parasitic',  which is the common law test  for such cases.  A person could only derive an income from such a business  because they were delivering an effective service to  consumers -    in this case, to  prostitutes.

'I think the wrongdoing they want to punish is profiting from the promotion of prostitution. But that's not this offence.'



Men fined  for online prostitutes' directory