SYNERGIS HOLDINGS LTD v. HSIN CHONG GROUP HOLDINGS LTD

HCCW 28/2019

[2020] HKCFI 2860

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

COMPANIES WINDING-UP PROCEEDINGS NO 28 OF 2019

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D E C I S I O N

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1.  I have two matters to deal with in these proceedings. The first is the variation of a costs order that I made as a consequence of the Petitioner’s failure to attend a hearing on the 12 October 2020. It would appear that the Petitioner’s solicitors had misread the letter sent to the parties by the court explaining the purpose of that hearing. In my view, the reasons advanced by the solicitors as justifying their misapprehension, are without any real substance. I will not vary the costs order and I will order that the Petitioner pays the costs of the application to vary it.

2.  The other matter is the dismissal of the petition itself, now the Company has been wound up in Bermuda where it is incorporated. The argument on the costs of the Hong Kong proceedings has become rather convoluted. It seems to me that the Petitioner is entitled to have its costs up to the time at which it might reasonably have been expected to be satisfied that there was no purpose in its petition remaining on foot.

3.  Given the fact that the current situation is uncommon, namely, a petition having been presented in Bermuda (the day before the petition was presented in Hong Kong) for soft-touch provisional liquidators to be appointed, it seems to me that the Petitioner could legitimately take the view that until the impact of the Bermuda Petition and in particular, the winding up of the Company in Bermuda in January 2020 became clear it, it should decline to agree to the dismissal of the petition.  The Petitioner should, in my view, have its costs up to the date on which it might reasonably have been expected to understand the interaction between the two sets of proceedings.  This, in my view, would have been about the middle of October and I will order that the Petitioner has its costs up to an including the 16 October.  So far as the costs of the hearing of the petition today is concerned.  I will make no order as to the Petitioner’s costs or the liquidators’ costs of the petition hearing itself today.