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A subcontractor for the MIRROR concert in July 2022 that saw two dancers injured by a falling LED screen pleaded guilty to six court summonses at Kowloon City Court on Wednesday and was fined HK$420,000.
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The six court summonses alleged Hip Hing Loong Stage Engineering Co Ltd of failing to ensure the health and safety of employees, failing to ensure plants onsite were safe, and failing to notify a serious accident to an occupational safety officer within 24 hours.
In sentencing, acting principal magistrate Ko Wai-hung said Hip Hing Loong must be held accountable since the company was responsible for installing the LED screen and should have ensured the suspension system could withstand the weight.
Ko continued that examining safety with the naked eye may be considered as malpractice of the industry and stressed that stage installations, which are getting more complicated everyday, should be managed by professionals and staffers should not rely on past experience.
Ko also blasted Hip Hing Loong for blindly trusting the option of the LED screen by the main contractor and ultimately slapped the company with a HK$420,000 fine.
The defense earlier said in mitigation that the company did lack safety awareness and extended its deepest apologies to the injured dancers, wishing them a speedy recovery.
The defense also said Hip Hing Loong was only the subcontractor of Engineering Impact Ltd and followed instructions of Engineering Impact to purchase the involved LED screen from a mainland manufacturer.
That manufacturer had been working with Engineering Impact for years and Hip Hing Loong was like a middleman, the defense added.
The original executive director of Hip Hing Loong had a wealth of experience in stage design and had transferred 70 percent of the shares to a registered engineer after this accident.
The defense admitted that it was inappropriate of Hip Hing Loong’s staffers to examine the screen’s safety with the naked eye but the company had imported a professional team and it was unlikely that a similar accident will occur in the future.
Engineering Impact was earlier fined HK$220,000 for four charges, while Studiodanz, the contractor for the concert’s dancers, was fined HK$132,000 for five charges.
