Harvard told to supply records of Hong Kong businessman and donor

Harvard University must disclose records about a prominent donor, the Hong Kong businessman Charles Spackman, after a federal judge ordered the school to produce information to an investor suing Spackman over a failed South Korean technology company.

US District Judge William G. Young in Boston ruled that the Ivy League member must supply records about Spackman’s donations in response to a request by Sang Cheol Woo, a minority investor in the company that collapsed, Littauer Technologies Co.

Woo has spent five years trying to collect a US$4.5 million judgment entered by a court in Seoul against Spackman in 2011, which has grown to US$12 million with interest.

Woo filed a suit in South Korea 14 years ago over the collapse of Littauer, alleging that Spackman, its founder, orchestrated a 2000 merger with a Bermuda-based company that he and his business partners controlled that led to the shares being delisted.

Spackman fled to Hong Kong amid Littauer’s collapse and was later fined by South Korean authorities after failing to show up to contest charges of stock manipulation.

Spackman is the founder, chairman and CEO of Spackman Group Ltd., a Hong Kong-based holding company for companies such as Spackman Entertainment, a producer of movies including “Snowpiercer,” a 2013 film starring Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton.