To start the year, RDG members might be interested in an upcoming appeal to the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, particularly if they are interested in illegality in restitution and/or in the conflict of laws, and or the relationship between claims in contract and in restitution. In Wong Chi Hung v Lo Wing Pun [2025] 2 HKLRD 882, a foreign exchange business received RMB 1 million from a customer in Mainland China, against a promise to pay an equivalent sum in HK in HK$. When it refused to pay, the customer sued in HK. The defendant, the FX business, argued that the agreement was contrary to Mainland China law. The trial judge agreed and held that due to this illegality under another legal system within the same country, the contract could not be enforced in HK. However, he allowed a claim in restitution for RMB 1 million or its equivalent in HK$. The defendant appealed and the CA, which rejected the appeal albeit modifying some of the trial judge’s reason. An argument that the judge’s order effectively ordered the enforcement of the illegal contract was rejected on the basis that the order allowed the defendant to comply by tendering RMB to make restitution, rather than HK$ as required by the contract; and the exchange rate would not be the contractual one, but the one in force at the time of tender.

 

I understand from Jonathan Chu of the University of Cambridge that an appeal to the HKCFA has been set down for 4 March 2026.

With best wishes to all for the coming year,

Lionel

 

 

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