VERMEERBERGEN PETER ALFRED v. SWISSTRIBE LTD

HCLA 36/2015
& HCLA 11/2017
[2026] HKCFI 2353
(Heard together)

HCLA 36/2015

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

LABOUR TRIBUNAL APPEAL NO 36 OF 2015

(ON APPEAL FROM LABOUR TRIBUNAL CLAIM NO 1570 OF 2014)

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AND

HCLA 11/2017

LABOUR TRIBUNAL APPEAL NO 11 OF 2017

(ON APPEAL FROM LABOUR TRIBUNAL CLAIM NO 1570 OF 2014)

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(Heard Together)

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D E C I S I O N

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1.  On 16th March 2026, the Master ordered that the callover hearing in both HCLA 36/2015 and HCLA 11/2017 be adjourned to 13th April 2026 and that the Director of Legal Aid send a representative to attend the hearing.

2.  Given that the Director of Legal Aid would have a first charge over any sums recovered from the Judgment Debtor, the Master sought the attendance of the Director of Legal Aid to ascertain his position as to (for example) whether he would want to take up the examination of the Judgment Debtor.

3.  The Master did not make any decision as regards the scope of the documents to be produced by the Judgment Debtor. He indicated that this would be deferred until after hearing from the Director of Legal Aid.

4.  The Notice of Appeal proceeds on the erroneous basis that the Master had already made a decision as regards the scope of documents to be produced by the Judgment Debtor, and that the Master was failing to enforce the order for examination. This is not the case: the Master was simply indicating that the Director of Legal Aid might have an interest in the matter and should be heard before any decision was made as regards what documents should be produced or what other directions should be given.

5.  At the hearing today, Mr Vermeerbergen submitted that the Master used the wrong procedure and should not have conducted the hearing as a callover. He says that there was a penal notice endorsed on the orders of 29th January 2026 ordering that the examinations take place on 16th March 2026, so that there was no jurisdiction for the Master to treat the hearing as a callover. He says that the Master should at least have asked the Judgment Debtor to identify himself and produce documents. He says that the Master has wrongly ordered a de facto stay of the examination, has wrongly “waved away” the Judgment Debtor’s breaches, and has wrongly re-opened the orders of 29th January 2026.

6.  As I endeavoured to explain to Mr Vermeerbergen in the course of the hearing, I do not agree. The Master had the jurisdiction to give directions for the proper conduct of the examination, including to adjourn the matter to enable the stance of the Director of Legal Aid to be clarified, before he proceeded to determine how the examination should be conducted. There was no stay of the examination; in fact, the Master had adjourned the matter to 16th April 2026. Ironically, had this appeal not been brought, the matter would have proceeded by now and Mr Vermeerbergen would have had the opportunity of raising his points about the conduct of the examination on that occasion.

7.  The appropriate course now is not for me to usurp the Master and to give directions for the conduct of the examination, but to let the matter proceed in the usual way before the Master. The callover before the Master has now been further adjourned to 29th April 2026. The parties’ arguments as to the proper scope of document production should be ventilated then.

8.  I dismiss this appeal.

9.  I will now hear the parties as to costs.