DetailsCourt of First Instance of Hong Kong issued its ruling on January 30, 2018 on EXCELSIORCAPITAL ASIA (HK) LIMITED (hereinafter EXCELSIO) and BLUEGOLD INVESTMENT HOLDINGS LIMITED (hereinafter BLUEGOLD) versus ZHANG HENGSHUN and ZHAO XIAOHONG, two partners of a law firm relating to the breach of a contract. The Court of Hong Kong affirmed that it lacks jurisdiction due to the theory of Forum Non Conveniens.
According to the complaints by the plaintiffs, they argued that the two partners defaulted while providing the service of due diligence and legal advice under the Letter of Engagement. The defendants responded that the jurisdiction of Court of Hong Kong is not proper according to the law of Hong Kong.
As for the jurisdiction, according to the former cases [namely SPH v SA (2014) 17 HKCFAR 364], when deciding the suspension of actions which applied Forum Non Conveniens, the only question the court has to consider is whether there is a more appropriate forum available to the parties which has the jurisdiction over the same case. That is to say, the parties shall prove the fact that the court of Hong Kong doesn’t have the most significant relationship with the case and the fact that there exists another court which is apparently more appropriate than the Hong Kong one.
In this case, having considered that the judges of court of mainland are more familiar with the law, politics and the practice of related authorities of mainland China, the court of Hong Kong affirmed that the court of mainland is more capable of dealing with the disputes of this case. In fact, more than one court of mainland has jurisdiction over this case depending on the complaint and the objects. As a result, the Court of Hong Kong decided that the legal proceedings shall be suspended.
So when we are involved in lawsuit in Hong Kong, we can make the use of forum non conveniens as a tool to protect our profit. In Hong Kong, the forum non conveniens needs the applicant to prove the fact that another forum is more appropriate to try the case, which also has jurisdiction over the same case.