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SCMP Reporter

A solicitor and senior Chinachem Group executive are refusing to give evidence in fung shui master Tony Chan Chun-chuen's  legal battle  for   the estate of the late billionaire Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum.
Mr Chan and the Chinachem Charitable Foundation are locked in a face-off over rival wills, dated four years apart, that apparently leave the entire estate to either one.
Solicitor Winfield Wong Wing-cheung  and the group's sales manager Ng Shung-mo  were the two witnesses on  the 2006  will which appears to leave  the estimated HK$100 billion fortune to  Mr Chan.
This latest development  came to light yesterday during a hearing in the Court of First Instance on preparations for the case.
Senior counsel Edward Chan King-san,  acting for Tony Chan, yesterday told Mr Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-nung  his client wanted  Mr Wong and Mr Ng to give evidence but the  request was contested.
Barrister Kwok Sui-hay,  acting for Mr Ng, and solicitor Lily Fenn Kar-bak,  representing Mr Wong,  confirmed that they opposed the call. The reason was not known.
Winfield Wong, who became a solicitor in 1988, is now a partner of Ford, Kwan & Company.  He specialises in corporate and commercial law.
His law firm has three local branches and he works in the Tsim Sha Tsui office which is located in Chinachem Golden Plaza.
Edward Chan also asked  the court to issue a  request  for assistance from the Singaporean authorities to obtain evidence from a person.  It concerned the facts of the case and the person's name was not disclosed.
'If we find it cannot do justice to my client without the evidence, we may ask for adjournment,' Edward Chan said.
Mr Justice Cheung  ordered a hearing, at a yet-to-be specified  date,   to decide whether the court would facilitate all the requests from Tony Chan.
The court heard that parties were working towards a provisional  February date for the start of the trial.
Wang, chairwoman of the Chinachem Group, died from cancer in April last year, less than two years after she won an acrimonious, decade-long battle with her father-in-law, Wang Din-shin, over the estate of her husband, Chinachem founder Teddy Wang Teh-huei,  who was kidnapped in 1990 and never seen again.
The dispute came after the foundation first indicated it had a will to inherit the estate.
Tony Chan,  a very close friend of Nina Wang, then subsequently claimed she had signed the will in 2006 to leave her estate to him.
The foundation is therefore seeking proof from Tony Chan of his claim.
Inherent confusion
Nina Wang won control of her late husband's estate in 2005 after a decade-long battle with her father-in-law
The amount the estate is valued at, in HK dollars, $100b



Witnesses won't testify over Nina Wang's will