Five companies linked to late rice-cooker tycoon William Mong Man-wai's Shun Hing Group are suing his estate for more than HK$1 billion.
They claim Mong took the money 'without proper authority' between 2002, the year of his high-profile divorce, and 2010, when he died. Bank of East Asia chairman David Li Kwok-po and solicitor Vic Choi Fan-keung, the executors of Mong's estate, are named as defendants.
Four companies that are part of the group - Shun Hing Holdings, Shun Hing Electronic Holdings, Shun Hing Electronic Trading and Shun Hing Technology - say in a High Court writ that Mong owed them HK$941 million. Liberian-registered Timmerton Company, which owns 40 per cent of Shun Hing Holdings, is seeking US$133 million, according to a separate writ. Both writs were filed on Wednesday
A Shun Hing Group spokeswoman, who declined to be identified, said the legal proceedings had been instituted by agreement between both sides.
'They are normal and reasonable legal proceedings,' she said.
The filings are the latest step in a long legal battle over Mong's fortune, which is said to be in the tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars.
Last year Mong's first wife, Serena Yang Hsueh-chi, their three daughters and two sons filed a writ seeking a court declaration on their entitlement to the Huge Surplus Trust and/or its assets.
