LAU KING TING KATIE v. CHENG MIU HAR STELLA AND OTHERS

cacv 100/2009

in the high court of the

hong kong special administrative region

court of appeal

civil appeal no. 100 of 2009

(on appeal from HCA NO. 1049 of 2007)

________________________

________________________

D E C I S I O N

________________________

1.  This is an application for an extension of time in which to provide a bank guarantee.  The order that I had made was that the appellant should provide security for costs.  I made the order in the usual form for security for costs on 28 July and gave the appellant until 28 August.  The usual form of the order is that the security can be provided either by a bank guarantee or by payment into court.  Bank guarantees, it used to be, but apparently, according to the banks, are now not very common.

2.  Be that as it may, this is August.  It is the long vacation.  In the middle of August the appellant got his act together, he gave a draft guarantee to the bank - which is a major bank in Hong Kong - and said: “There is a cash deposit in our daughter’s name, and she is prepared to go along with this.”  Then the bank said, “Well, we do not provide guarantees.”  I find that very difficult to understand.  The appellant went to another branch of the same bank and received the same stupid answer.

3.  Anyway, in my view this application for an extension of 21 days should have been consented to.  This appeal is not coming on until 5 and 6 January.  There is plenty of time.  It took the respondents a couple of months to make their application and I see absolutely no reason why, in circumstances where the appellant has tried to get the bank guarantee and has got his act together, a short extension would cause any problem.  Quite frankly, the bank has shown something close to an un-understandable attitude.  I can only put it down to the fact that the people in the bank who have dealt with it so far are inexperienced to the extent that they are not familiar with normal banking operations.

4.  So in those circumstances I will grant the extension.  This application was unnecessary and should have been consented to.  So the appellant will pay the cost of making this application, but there will be no order as to costs today.