LAU PING LAM v. CHOI SAU POON AND ANOTHER

DCCJ 3183/2022

[2026] HKDC 334

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CIVIL ACTION NO 3183 OF 2022

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(By original action)

(By counterclaim)

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DECISION

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Introduction

1.  I handed down my trial judgment on 14 November 2025 (see [2025] HKDC 1931). I shall adopt the same abbreviations and nomenclatures used therein. In gist, in the judgment I dismissed Lau’s claims against Cheung for the repayment of money and his claims against Choi for the return of the Property. I also dismissed Choi’s unjust enrichment claims against Lau and Chun Sang.

2.  By a summons dated 12 December 2025, Lau seeks leave to appeal against the judgment in relation to the dismissal of his claims against Choi for the return of the Property. Cheung takes a neutral stance as the intended appeal does not concern her.

Applicable Principles

3.  Section 63A(2) of the District Court Ordinance (Cap 336) stipulates as follows:-

“(2) Leave to appeal shall not be granted unless the judge, the master or the Court of Appeal hearing the application for leave is satisfied that —

(a) the appeal has a reasonable prospect of success; or

(b) there is some other reason in the interests of justice why the appeal should be heard.”

4.  It is well established that in respect of findings of fact, the Court of Appeal would only intervene when it is satisfied that the findings by the primary judge are plainly wrong: Ting Kwok Keung v Tam Dick Yuen (2002) 5 HKCFAR 336 at §42; China Gold Finance Limited v CIL Holdings Limited CACV 11/2015 (unreported, 27 November 2015) at §11.

Overarching Analysis of the Intended Appeal

5.  In §21 of the trial judgment, I identified four main issues that required determination, namely (1) whether Lau caused $2,200,000 or $2,000,000 to be transferred to Cheung; (2) be it $2,200,000 or $2,000,000, whether the transfer was a gift or a loan to Cheung; if it was a loan, whether Lau was estopped from claiming for repayment; (3) whether the Property was a gift to Choi or Choi held the Property on trust for Lau; if Choi held it on trust, whether Lau was estopped from claiming beneficial interest in the Property; and (4) whether Lau and/or Chun Sang were liable to pay $1,000,000 to Choi.

6.  Before I addressed the four main issues, I have in §§22-28 of the trial judgment analysed the credibility of Lau and his witness Amy, a solicitor by profession. They gave evidence to the effect that Lau had sold his shares in Build Rich and Chun Sang to Amy, and I found that they were not telling the truth.

7.  In the present application, Lau has put forward the following six intended grounds of appeal which are contained in the draft notice of appeal (which was settled by his trial counsel but not Ms Grace Kwok who appeared for Lau only in this leave application):-

(1)  I unfairly found that Lau had lied about his relationships with Build Rich and Chun Sang and that he instructed Amy to make the same lies, when the serious accusations were not clearly put to Lau and Amy.

(2)  I erred in finding that Lau instructed Amy to lie to the Court when there was a lack of cogent evidence.

(3)  I impermissibly found that Lau instructed Amy to lie to the Court on the basis of circumstantial evidence rather than on primary facts.

(4)  I erred in permitting Lau and Amy to be cross examined with documents on collateral issues, such as their relationships with Build Rich and Chun Sang.

(5)  I erred in in finding that Lau’s dishonesty on collateral issues could justify an inference of dishonesty on the central issues.

(6)  My consideration of the evidence suffered from palpable and overriding error and was unreasonable.

8.  It is immediately clear that the intended grounds of appeal mostly centre around my assessment of Lau and Amy’s general credibility, without really identifying any errors in my analysis of the main issue which I ruled against Lau in relation to the Property (ie issue 3).

9.  On issue 3, Lau alleged that the Property was held on trust by Choi for him. I first noted in §50 of the trial judgment that there was no good reason for Lau to register the Property in Choi’s name. I then held in §51 that it was inherently probable for Lau to make a gift to Choi given his generosity towards her daughter, Cheung. In §§52-53, I referred to Lau’s own messages and a legal document signed by Lau, which all signified that Choi was the legal and beneficial owner of the Property. Last but not least, in §54 I made reference to Document 1, which reflected Lau’s intention to gift the Property to Choi. The evidence was so overwhelmingly against Lau that I did not have to rely on Lau’s general incredibility in assessing the issue.

10.  In his intended grounds of appeal, Lau has not even attempted to identify errors with my reasoning in relation to issue 3 as summarised above. The general credibility of Lau and Amy did not affect my reasoning one way or another, so even if I had been mistaken in my assessment of their credibility, the outcome on issue 3 would have been the same. For instance, in §53 of the trial judgment I referred to a loan agreement which contained a representation that Choi was the sole beneficial owner of the Property and which was signed by Lau. During the hearing of this leave application, Ms Kwok confirmed that my analysis of the effect of this piece of documentary evidence was not challenged. For this reason alone, Lau’s intended appeal is bound to fail and no leave to appeal should be granted.

11.  It is interesting to note that I briefly relied on Lau’s general incredibility only in my analysis of issue 1 on his payments to Cheung (see §35 of the trial judgment), but Lau did not seek leave to appeal against my dismissal of his claims against Cheung. He seems to have accepted that I correctly took into account his general incredibility in assessing issue 1, but when it came to issue 3, my assessment of his general incredibility was somehow erroneous even though I did not refer to it in my analysis of issue  3.

12.  For the sake of completeness, I shall address the intended grounds of appeal one by one and explain why I do not consider them to have any reasonable prospect of success.

The Six Intended Grounds of Appeal

13.  In his intended ground 1, Lau’s focus is on my finding in §28 of the trial judgment about his preparedness to get Amy to lie about their relationships with Build Rich and Chun Sang, when this was not clearly put to them. This argument has absolutely no merits:-

(1)  In §25 of the trial judgment, I referred to various matters which rendered it inherently unbelievable that Lau had sold Build Rich to Amy as alleged, and in §26 I pointed to the documentary evidence which contradicted their case. In §27, I analyzed the inherent impossibilities of their case regarding Chun Sang and the documentary evidence against them. Lau and Amy could not explain away these matters at the trial.

(2)  In other words, the evidence was very clear that Lau had always been the owner of the 900 shares in Build Rich and the 27,000 shares in Chun Sang. Lau and Amy, who alleged themselves to be the vendor and purchaser of the shares, must both know that their allegations were plainly false.

(3)  Notwithstanding that, Lau called Amy to testify at the trial. The inescapable conclusion was that Lau got Amy to lie about their relationships with Build Rich and Chun Sang.

(4)  Furthermore, as correctly pointed out by Ms Joyce Lee, counsel appearing for Choi, the issue of Lau’s relationship with Build Rich and Chun Sang had been at the forefront of parties’ minds from the outset and was explored in cross examination. It could not possibly be suggested that Lau and Amy were not afforded a fair opportunity to explain themselves.

14.  Relatedly, Lau said in his intended ground 2 that there must be cogent and compelling evidence to support the serious allegations against him and Amy. As noted above, I have in §§25-27 of the trial judgment referred to such cogent and compelling evidence, and Lau could not find fault with any of my analysis of those evidence. Intended ground 2 must be rejected.

15.  Lau criticized in his intended ground 3 that I made a conjecture that Lau instructed Amy to lie at the trial based on circumstantial evidence. With respect, I cannot see what this intended ground adds to the intended grounds 1 and 2. In any event, there was cogent and compelling evidence that Lau and Amy were dishonest, and both of them must know that they were not telling the truth.

16.  By his intended ground 4, Lau contended that I breached the “finality rule” by allowing Lau and Amy to be cross examined on their relationship with Build Rich and Chun Sang, when that relationship was not directly relevant to the disputed issues. Ms Kwok confirmed that Amy mentioned these matters in her own witness statement, but notwithstanding that, Ms Kwok submitted that Lau and Amy could not be cross examined on those matters because they were peripheral issues. This point was not taken at the trial, and with respect I do not consider it to be correct. Having chosen to put them into their witness statements, Lau and Choi must subject themselves to cross examination on those matters. This is totally unlike the situation where a party seeks to adduce evidence to contradict answers to questions in cross examination as to credit. Quite the contrary, as Li CJ noted in HKSAR v Wong Sau Ming (2003) 6 HKCFAR 135 at §23, where the veracity of a witness was challenged on cross examination as to credit, subject to the judge’s discretion to disallow improper questions, cross-examination about discreditable acts would be widely permitted.

17.  In his intended ground 5, Lau essentially argued that although I found him dishonest on the collateral issues, it could not be treated as determinative of his credibility on the central issues. It is clear from the trial judgment that when I analysed the four main issues, I referred extensively to the relevant evidence, and the general incredibility of Lau only slightly featured in my analysis of issue 1. I did not rule against Lau on issue 3 only because I found him to be a generally incredible witness.

18.  Intended ground 6 is a general criticism of my evaluation of evidence:-

(1)  It was suggested that I placed undue weight on Lau’s dishonest evidence on the collateral issues. But the fact is that I barely referred to Lau’s general incredibility in my analysis of the main issues.

(2)  It was argued that Choi was an incredible witness, but Choi’s claim regarding the Property was amply supported by documentary evidence. While I rejected some of her evidence in §59 of the trial judgment, it related only to issue 4 which I already found in Lau’s favour.

(3)  It was contended that I reversed the burden of proof by stating in §50 of the trial judgment that Lau did not offer any reason why he would register the Property in Choi’s name. It is clear from §§48-49 that I was aware that Choi bore the burden of proof, and in §§51-54 I referred to the evidence which sufficiently enabled Choi to rebut the presumption of resulting trust.

(4)  Lastly Lau said I placed undue weight on non-contemporaneous conduct such as his messages to Choi. It is important to note that the messages I referred to were sent by Lau. Lau could not explain why his own messages would be unreliable evidence. Moreover, in §53 of the trial judgment I also referred to a loan agreement signed by Lau, which signified Lau’s acknowledgement of and/or agreement to the representation that Choi was the sole beneficial owner of the Property.

Conclusion

19.  I would dismiss Lau’s summons dated 12 December 2025. It is not clear to me why Lau found it necessary to involve Cheung in this leave application, but given his choice, he has to bear Cheung’s costs. I make an order nisi that costs be paid by Lau to Cheung and Choi, to be taxed if not agreed, with certificate for counsel.