The Court of Final Appeal has ruled that five people who served prison terms for their involvement with a scheme cooked up by jailed Shanghai Land fraudster Chau Ching-ngai should not have been convicted.
The three lawyers, an investment banker and a businessman who acted as advisers to Chau did not get a fair trial, a judge said.
Former Bank of China International vice-president Fiona Lam Lai-chu, lawyers Donald Koo Hoi-yan, Vivien Fan Cho-man, Simon Lai Sau-cheong and Chau's former financial controller, Habibullah Rahman, were jailed in September 2008 for conspiring with Chau to defraud Shanghai Land shareholders and Hong Kong regulators.
While all five have served their prison terms, the court ruled, in a decision published yesterday, that they did not get a fair trial when they were convicted by the District Court in 2008 because prosecutors bungled their evidence.
Chau bought Shanghai Land in 2002, funding the deal with a HK$2.15 billion loan from Bank of China. He was advised by the state-owned lender's investment banking arm, Bank of China International.
The District Court found in 2008 that Chau repaid the loan by selling his own properties to Shanghai Land. But he claimed in the offer document for Shanghai Land that he would repay the debt with his own cash.
The five were convicted for conspiring with Chau to conceal the asset injection that paid for the takeover.