In brief On 10 April 2024, the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (CFA), Hong Kong’s highest court, delivered its judgment in Tam Sze Leung & Ors v Commissioner of Police [2024] HKCFA 8, affirming the validity of the ‘No Consent Regime’ (“Regime”) of the Hong Kong Police (“Police”). As we set out in our previous alerts (here, here and here), the Regime encompassed a practice of issuing “Letters of No Consent” (LNCs) to financial institutions for customer accounts that…
In Brief Cyber fraud remains a significant risk to businesses and individuals. In the 11 months to November 2021, over 500 phishing scams, worth more than HKD 1.4 billion in losses, were reported to the Hong Kong Police. The Police have been developing and will soon launch a free software to assist businesses in identifying phishing scams.[1] On 30 December 2021, the Hong Kong Court of First Instance handed down an important judgment in Tam Sze Leung…
In brief We have seen a noticeable increase in the prevalence and sophistication of cyber fraud incidents in recent years. This has led to a substantial rise in civil recovery actions, and as a result, we now have the benefit of key learnings from recent decisions by the Hong Kong Courts and other jurisdictions. This alert discusses some of the common themes and challenges victims of fraud may face in civil recovery actions, particularly in…
Victims of cyber fraud have been using vesting orders – a means of direct recovery for victims of fraud – to recover stolen funds from fraudsters and subsequent recipients. Often applied concurrently with a default judgment, vesting order is thought to be a convenient alternative to garnishee proceedings. In Brief In the past year, the Courts’ jurisdiction to grant vesting orders in cyber fraud cases has been reassessed. There are now conflicting first-instance judgments on…