SHKP paid hefty bonuses to executive director via designated account, court told
Executive director Thomas Chan, allegedly a bribery middleman, was recipient of confidential payments running into the millions, court told
Sun Hung Kai Properties used a bank account designated for making "very confidential payments" to award millions of dollars in "bonuses" to an executive director who now stands accused in the city's highest-profile corruption trial.
The executive director, Thomas Chan Kui-yuen, is accused of being a go-between for his bosses - the Kwok brothers who chair SHKP jointly - and ex-chief secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan.
Light was shed on the nature of the SHKP bank account yesterday when Mr Justice Andrew Macrae weighed in and confronted a prosecution witness with his own series of questions. Macrae realised that two cheques issued under the account to Chan were, despite being dated six months apart in 2008, numbered sequentially. The cheques were made out for HK$5 million and HK$6 million.
"Is that something you can comment on at all?" he asked SHKP's internal affairs chief, Tang Chak-hin. Tang replied: "To my knowledge, this bank account is only used for very confidential payments. So I'm not surprised to learn that the [second] cheque was issued six months later."
Lead prosecutor David Perry QC later asked what was so confidential about SHKP bonuses.
Tang said: "[The] bonus forms part of one's remuneration and, for colleagues, remuneration is something confidential."
Perry asked: "What appears in the annual report?"
