Hong Kong hotel boss accused of HK$200m fraud mounts legal challenge over refusal to allow trial by jury

A Hong Kong hotelier accused of defrauding a bank of HK$200 million in loans is mounting a judicial challenge over the secretary for justice’s refusal to allow him a trial by jury in the High Court.

Kimberley Hotel owner Lau Hei-wing said his case should not be tried at the District Court as arranged, given its “great general importance to the public”, involving a well-known hotelier of “high public status”, a long-established hotel and the largest national bank in China.

The 59-year-old argued there was “a clear and manifest inconsistency” in the secretary’s handling of his case as compared with others that proceeded to the higher Court of First Instance.

Examples he cited included businessman Lew Mon-hung’s HK$170 million money laundering trial, solicitor Kennedy Wong Ying-ho’s HK$15 million bribery trial, and former chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen’s misconduct in public office trial.

Lau said in a writ filed to the High Court on Friday: “What case, if any, is suitable for trial in the Court of First Instance and before a jury if not the present criminal proceedings as against the proposed applicant?”

The Tsim Sha Tsui hotel owner was charged with three counts of fraud by the Independent Commission Against Corruption last November.

Lau is accused of falsely claiming that three loans he secured from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Asia) were to renovate the hotel.