Appeal court overturns ruling after judge copied lawyers’ submissions

The Court of Appeal has ordered a retrial of a dispute involving shares linked to Nam Tai Electronics after finding that High Court judge Wilson Chan Ka-shun had copied almost 95 percent of his judgment from one side’s written submissions.

The case concerns a dispute between Nam Tai founder Koo Ming-kown and his former brother-in-law, Charles Chu Chia-chin, over shares in Nam Tai’s parent company valued at about HK$40 million.

In his 2024 ruling, Chan found that Chu had sold the shares for HK$4 million in 1992 because of financial difficulties and had informed Koo of the sale.

The judge considered it unlikely that Chu would later have offered to return the shares, particularly as Koo raised the claim 22 years after Chu divorced Koo’s sister. Chan dismissed the plaintiffs’ case and ordered them to pay legal costs.

Koo and the other plaintiffs appealed, arguing that almost 95 percent of the paragraphs in Chan’s judgment had been copied from Chu’s opening and closing submissions.

The Court of Appeal accepted that the judgment had reproduced the submissions almost verbatim and said it did not show that Chan had considered conflicting evidence and arguments from both sides or independently determined the key issues.

Although the parties wished to avoid the time and cost of another trial, the appeal judges said the original proceedings had not properly resolved the dispute. They overturned Chan’s ruling and ordered a retrial before a different judge.

The case is the latest involving allegations of “judicial copying” against Chan.

In a 2021 trademark dispute involving Wong To Yick Wood Lock Medicated Balm, more than 98 percent of Chan’s judgment was said to have been copied from the plaintiffs’ written submissions.

The Court of Appeal allowed the defendants’ appeal in 2023 and ordered a retrial before another judge, warning that wholesale copying could undermine confidence that a judge had independently considered the case.

Another case involved Lo Kai-shui, the youngest son of late Great Eagle Holdings founder Lo Ying-shek, who sued his brother Lo Ka-shui in 2018 over alleged breaches of fiduciary duty.

The Court of Appeal found that about 92 percent of Chan’s judgment had been copied and later assigned the case to another judge.

Chief Justice Andrew Cheung Kui-nung and Chief Judge of the High Court Jeremy Poon Shiu-chor previously reprimanded Chan over judicial copying. Chan indicated that he understood and accepted the reprimand.

𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽 ↓