Recently, there has been a surge of decisions in the Hong Kong courts on the (urgent) recovery of funds lost in email scams. These claims raise practical and theoretical issues, such as whether the courts should invoke s52(1)(e) of the Trustee Ordinance to vest the relevant funds with the victim, how far fraudulently obtained funds that have been mixed in a running bank account are traceable and thus recoverable, and whether the constructive trust recognised in Westdeutsche Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale v Islington LBC [1996] AC 669 to be applicable to fraudulently obtained properties is a true trust. This seminar will examine recent conflicting decisions in the lower courts in Hong Kong that have considered some of these issues, as well as the observation of Lord Sumption NPJ in Xiamen Xinjingdi v Eton Properties [2020] HKCFA 32 [174] about the nature of the constructive trust.

About the Speaker:

Lusina Ho is the Harold Hsiao-Wo Lee Professor in Trust and Equity at the Faculty of Law, the University of Hong Kong.  Her main research interests are in the law of trusts, equitable remedies, and comparative trusts. She is the author of Trust Law in China (Sweet & Maxwell Asia 2003), and has edited, amongst others, an essay collection on Trust Law in Asian Civil Law Jurisdictions: A Comparative Analysis (CUP 2013)(with Rebecca Lee).  She has published widely and her work has been cited in highest appellate courts in common law jurisdictions.  

The Law Society of Hong Kong has awarded this seminar 1 Continuing Professional Development (CPD) point.