HONG KONG SAR, CHINA Law and Practice Contributed by: Eric H. H. Chow, Michael Cheng, Stephanie Wong and June Wong, C L Chow and Macksion Chan
tled to enforce against the judgment debtor’s assets (Erwiana Sulistyaningsih v Law Wan Tung [2018] HKDC 1267). Even so, any such relief does not follow automatically from the judgment and, where granted, the order will normally be of limited and specific dura - tion. The court considers four requirements: • a good arguable case on a substantive claim; • assets within the jurisdiction; • that the balance of convenience favours granting the order; and • a real risk that assets will be dissipated or removed from the jurisdiction. The courts require solid evidence. Where a freezing order is made, the court may also require the judg - ment debtor to disclose the nature, value and location of its assets. Whether such a disclosure is ordered, and on what terms, depends on the case. Where it is ordered, the disclosure can assist the judgment credi - tor in identifying and mapping the judgment debtor’s assets for enforcement. Getting Information From Third Parties Frequently, the useful information sits with a third par - ty. A Norwich Pharmacal order compels a third party who has become mixed up in wrongdoing to disclose information needed to identify a wrongdoer or trace assets; a Bankers Trust order performs a similar trac - ing function against banks. Where the third party is a bank and where proceed - ings are afoot, a party may apply under Section 21 of the Evidence Ordinance, Cap 8 for permission to inspect and take copies of entries in a bank’s records for the purposes of those proceedings. This relief is not readily granted. The courts require solid evidence of serious wrongdoing and insist that requests be pro - portionate; broad, speculative “fishing” applications are unlikely to succeed. Whether the relief is available in a given case, and at what stage, depends on the circumstances and should be assessed on the spe - cific facts. Commercial Intelligence and Open-Source Research Outside the court process, judgment creditors often draw on private investigators and open-source
research to supplement the formal tools. Commer - cial intelligence of this kind can extend beyond tra - ditional enquiry agents to forensic accountants, who analyse financial records and trace funds, and com - puter forensics specialists, who recover and examine electronic data. Through this work, property dealings, corporate connections and links to family members or associates who may hold assets for the judgment debtor can surface and can help make sense of lay - ered structures spread across several jurisdictions. It must be conducted within the limits of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, Cap 486 and related privacy rules, but, done properly, it can fill gaps that registry Used together, these options build an evidence-based picture of a counterparty’s assets: public registers give the baseline; examination orders can require the judgment debtor to fill the gaps; freezing and third-party disclosure orders can preserve and reveal assets at risk; and private intelligence exposes hidden or deliberately obscured holdings. What that picture shows then drives the choices covered in the rest of this guide – whether to pursue charging orders, gar - nishee proceedings or insolvency (see 2. Domestic Judgments ), to register or sue on a foreign judgment (see 3. Foreign Judgments ), or to enforce an arbitral award (see 4. Arbitral Awards ). searches alone leave open. How the Pieces Fit Together Hong Kong judgments are grouped by the stage at which they are reached and by whether they resolve the merits. The main types are default judgments, interlocutory judgments, summary judgments and final judgments, and each can be for monetary or for other relief. • Default judgment: Entered because the defendant did not take a required step – usually failing to file an acknowledgment of service or a defence – rath - er than on the merits. Under Order 13 and Order 19 of the Rules of the High Court (RHC), this route is available for claims for a liquidated or unliquidated sum, detention of goods or possession of land; the 2. Domestic Judgments 2.1 Types of Domestic Judgments
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