HK$766m divorce payout for ex-wife of leading engineer Otto Poon

The ex-wife of top engineer Otto Poon Lok-to will get a divorce payout worth more than HK$750 million after the top court ruled that Poon must share the whole of his HK$1.5 billion family trust with her.

Five Court of Final Appeal judges accepted the argument by Kay Kan Lai-kwan, 75, who was married to Poon, 74, for more than 40 years, that two lower courts were wrong to rule that only two-thirds of the fund should be considered a matrimonial asset.

The High Court and Court of Appeal had ruled that one-third of the trust should be held back for the couple's only surviving child, a daughter. The top court ruled that the lower courts erred in protecting the interests of the daughter individually.

"[The daughter] like the wife … did not have any fixed beneficial interest in the trust fund," Mr Justice Roberto Ribeiro wrote. Describing the workings of the fund as "revealing", the judge said the trust's only assets were dividend payments from Analogue Group, an engineering firm built up and controlled by Poon.

Ribeiro, along with Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li, Mr Justice Robert Tang Ching, Mr Justice Kemal Bokhary and Mr Justice William Gummow, ruled that the fund must be regarded as a financial resource of the husband. They said Kan was entitled to HK$766 million.

Poon had argued that the award should have been based on his worth in 2001 - just HK$25 million - on the basis that their marriage effectively ended then, even though Kan did not initiate divorce proceedings until 2008.