Council overseeing estate of Hong Kong’s Nina Wang to be set up by quarter end

A council for the trustee for the more than HK$140 billion (US$18 billion) estate of Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum could be set up next month, potentially ending a decade-long legal saga and allowing the late tycoon’s final wishes to be fulfilled, Hong Kong’s justice minister has said.

Secretary for Justice Paul Lam Ting-kwok told the Legislative Council on Wednesday that he had started looking for suitable council members, who would be responsible for ensuring the estate supported charitable works and public services.

The council will be expected to implement one of Wang’s wishes as laid out in her will, which is to set up “a fund and a Chinese prize of worldwide significance similar to that of the Nobel Prize”.

Lam said he was aware legal proceedings had dragged on since the Court of Final Appeal ruled in 2015 that the then secretary for justice and Chinachem Charitable Foundation needed to come up with a plan to fulfil Wang’s final wishes.

“I am fully confident that we can kick-start the relevant operations that everyone has been looking forward to for a long time,” the minister told legislators.

“I believe we are going for the goal.”

Last month, Lam appointed former Legco president Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, ex-Hong Kong Monetary Authority CEO Joseph Yam Chi-kwong and former Baptist University council chairman Cheng Yan-kee to serve as members of a supervisory managing organisation that would handle the trustee’s operations.