Lee Kok-lam came to work in Hong Kong from Singapore in 1997 with a new university degree, a job and high hopes.
Today he is unemployed, broke and angry with the Hong Kong legal system that he says allowed a legal dispute with his former employer to drag on for 12 years, costing his family HK$3 million and almost costing the lives of his wife and children, before it was finally settled out of court.
The woes of Lee, a project development manager, began two years after his arrival when his boss, former solicitor David Ho Yuk-wah, suspected he was diverting business away from the company, Asia-Pac Infrastructure Development, which sued him for breach of fiduciary duty and took out an injunction freezing his assets.
When it finally came to court on January 5 this year, the plaintiff offered to settle after 10 days of hearings during which the claim was steadily reduced, says Lee, who was sued along with four co-defendants.
Halfway through that time Lee, 39, had to rush back to Singapore when his wife tried to commit suicide along with their sons, aged six and eight.
But having come this far, he still wishes the case had gone to a full trial.