Hong Kong court restores jail terms for 4 in HK$51 million Convoy fraud case

Hong Kong’s top court has reinstated the convictions and jail sentences of four conspirators who defrauded a leading finance company of HK$51 million (US$6.6 million) in commissions and bonuses in the city’s biggest corporate scandal in decades.

In a unanimous decision on Wednesday, the Court of Final Appeal handed the city’s graft buster the victory in its eight-year effort to hold some of the senior figures of Convoy Global Holdings accountable as part of a larger crackdown on white-collar misconduct.

Ex-Convoy executive director Mak Kwong-yiu and former Gransing Securities general manager Lee Yick-ming will have to serve the remainder of their sentences. They were jailed for seven and five months, respectively, in a District Court trial in 2021.

But the court heard that Mak was overseas and would only return to the city on Friday.

The five presiding judges also restored the penalties imposed on former Convoy financial controller Christine Chan Lai-yee and ex-manager Wong Shuk-on whose respective jail terms of five and four months were suspended for 1½ years.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) had been left without a successful prosecution in what was then Hong Kong’s largest financial fraud investigation in decades, before the top judges reversed the defendants’ acquittals.