Published: 8:30am, 10 Oct 2024Updated: 8:56am, 10 Oct 2024
The two arrested owners of the closed Hong Kong gym chain Physical could avoid criminal liability by finding a new investor to continue its services, the Post has found.
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The owners, who are also directors of the scandal-hit chain, could mount a defence against possible charges of accepting last-minute payments for new contracts by showing they had tried to secure financial backing for their struggling business, sources and lawyers said.
Two lawyers pointed to a notice on Physical Fitness and Beauty’s website on September 7 in which the company said it had found a new unnamed investor that would reopen its Wan Chai branch under the brand name “Healthy” and provide free sessions to former Physical clients for unused services with “coordination” from Physical.
“It is good enough for the defendants to produce the notice and seek to rely on [the defence], because the trader only has to ‘offer to procure’,” said Kenix Yuen Pui-kwan, a commercial disputes expert and partner at law firm Lewis Silkin.
“However, if [the new investment] after the gym’s closure was not procured by Physical, then it wouldn’t fall under this defence.”
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Days after the decades-old fitness chain announced its closure, customs officers arrested owners Luk Ngai-keung, 67, and his wife Ho Yuk-wah, 68, on September 11 for allegedly having no intention of supplying services after accepting payments from customers – an offence punishable by up to five years in prison and a HK$500,000 (US$64,400) fine.