Hmm (Hong Kong) Limited (Formerly Known As Hyundai Merchant Marine (Hong Kong) Limited) v. Ma Chun Kit and Others

HCA 619/2016

[2022] HKCFI 1153

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

ACTION NO 619 OF 2016

________________________

BETWEEN

________________________

________________________

J U D G M E N T

________________________

Introduction

1.This is the trial of the plaintiff’s action against the 1^st defendant, Mr Ma Chun Kit (“Ma”).

2.The plaintiff is a Hong Kong incorporated company and a subsidiary of Hyundai Merchant Marine Company Limited (“Hyundai Korea”).  Hyundai Korea is a public listed company in Korea, carrying on the business of cargo and logistics services worldwide.  The plaintiff is responsible for effecting payment of bills and invoices for Hyundai Korea in respect of its business in the South China region. 

3.Ma was an employee of the plaintiff from 1992 to 2016.  He joined as an accounts clerk and was gradually promoted over the years.  In April 2011, he became the Deputy General Manager of the Account Department. He remained in that post until he was summarily dismissed on 4 March 2016.  At that time, his monthly salary was $37,900.

4.It is the plaintiff’s case that between 2009 and 2016, Ma had transferred a total sum of $387,655,303.70 (“the Sum”)  from the plaintiff’s bank accounts to his own bank accounts.  This involved 262 transactions. The transfers were made without the plaintiff’s authority.  Ma made use of the transferred money for his own use and benefit.  The dates, the amounts and the bank accounts involved in the 262 transactions are set out in Schedule 1 of the re-amended statement of claim. 

5.In its pleading, the plaintiff claims against Ma for the restitution of the Sum on the basis of unjust enrichment. Alternatively, it claims damages and/or equitable compensation for conversion, breach of confidence, breach of implied duty of fidelity, and breach of fiduciary duties.  It seeks a further alternative of an account of profits in respect of the Sum, at its option. 

6.In his closing submissions, Mr Jonathan Wong, appearing with Ms Jacquelyn Ng for the plaintiff, confirmed that the plaintiff would seek equitable compensation from Ma with compound interest, and would not ask for an account of profits.

7.In the re-amended statement of claim, the plaintiff avers that Ma had on multiple occasions transferred parts of the Sum to the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th defendants, who are, respectively, his girlfriend, father and step-mother.  The plaintiff claims against the three defendants on the basis of restitution, knowing receipt and/or dishonest assistance. 

8.The action against the 2^nd defendant was discontinued earlier on in these proceedings.  The 3^rd defendant passed away in July 2016.  Shortly before the trial, the action against the 4^th defendant was dismissed by consent.  The present trial only concerns Ma.

9.Separately, after a 36-day trial, Ma was convicted of four counts of theft in HCCC 20/2018 in December 2020.  The four counts concerned the same transactions which form the subject-matter of this action, save for two transactions.  He was sentenced to a total term of 15 years’ imprisonment.

10.The two transactions for which Ma was not charged were the first two in time, namely the transfer of $325,000 on 8 April 2009 and $375,000 on 15 April 2009.  I shall refer to them as “the first two transactions” and the others “the 260 transactions” below.  The sums allegedly misappropriated under these two heads are $700,000 and $386,955,303.70, respectively. When proving its case on the latter, the plaintiff prays in aid Ma’s criminal conviction pursuant to section 62 of the Evidence Ordinance, Cap 8.

11.In this action, Ma was initially legally represented.  Since 29 December 2020, he acted in person.  He was brought up to court on the first day of trial on my order.  He confirmed that he did not wish to participate in the trial.  He was then taken back into custody.  The trial therefore proceeded in his absence.

12.The plaintiff called five witnesses:

(1)  Ms Tsang Chor Yue (“Tsang”).  Tsang was an employee of the plaintiff from April 1997 and until she resigned in January 2018.  She worked in the Accounts Payable section, which was one of the three sections of the Account Department.  The Accounts Payable section was responsible for making payments to third party vendors and suppliers of the plaintiff.  Tsang reported directly to Ma.  A Ms Ling Ka Man (“Ling”)  reported to Tsang.

(2)  Mr Jung Yeonkook (“Jung”).  Jung was the General Manager of the Administration Department of the plaintiff from March 2007 to May 2011.  In that position, he was responsible for directing and supervising the general administration of the plaintiff, including the Account Department.  Ma reported directly to Jung when he was promoted to the position of Deputy General Manager of the department in April 2011.  Jung was succeeded by Mr Moon Tea Sung (“Moon”).

(3)  Mr Park Sungchul (“SC Park”).  SC Park succeeded Moon as the General Manager of the Administration Department of the plaintiff in March 2015.  He remained in that position until September 2017.  It was he who first discovered inexplicable discrepancies in the ledger and accounting information of the plaintiff in around October 2015.  This prompted him to further investigate and eventually led to the discovery of Ma’s alleged misappropriations of the plaintiff’s funds.

(4)  Mr Kim Byungsoo (“BS Kim”).  BS Kim was sent to the Hong Kong office in February 2016 to investigate the matter with SC Park. At that time, he was the manager of the Cost Innovation Team of Hyundai Korea, based in Korea.

(5)  Mr Park Byungwoo (“BW Park”).  He is an in-house lawyer of Hyundai Korea.  He was involved in the investigation of the alleged misappropriation of funds by Ma since around June 2016.  By that time, the 262 transactions had been discovered.

13.Save for Tsang, the plaintiff’s witnesses are all located in Korea.  With the leave of the court, the four overseas witnesses gave oral evidence remotely via video-conferencing at the trial.  As Ma did not participate in the trial, there was no cross-examination of the witnesses.

14.To complete the dramatis personae, I should also introduce the Managing Directors of the plaintiff who feature in its case.  The Managing Director was the person-in-charge of the plaintiff and was responsible for the overall supervision and direction over its affairs.  The General Manager reported directly to the Managing Director.  In chronological order, they were (the year in bracket denoting when the position was taken up):

(1)  Kim Ji Taek (February 2009);

(2)  Sohn Hyunjoo (January 2012);

(3)  Kim Kyung Tae (January 2013); and

(4)  Kim Kyunghoon (“KH Kim”)  (October 2014 to March 2017).

15.The plaintiff has produced extensive documentary evidence in support of its case.  In addition to the bundles of pleadings and witness statements, there are 59 bundles of documents. 

16.They comprise, among other things, bank statements showing the 262 transactions from the plaintiff’s bank accounts to Ma’s bank accounts, the authorisation records generated by the bank for the 260 transactions showing the apparent identity of the persons approving the transfers on the bank’s online payment platform.

17.In addition to the primary documents, BW Park has compiled a table summarising the authorisation levels and the persons apparently authorising the online payments in the 260 transactions.

18.As mentioned above, the plaintiff relies on the criminal conviction of Ma in respect of the 260 transactions.  It prays in aid section 62(2)(b)  of the Evidence Ordinance to adduce as evidence the documents filed in HCCC 20/2018, including the Indictments, the 1^st Admitted Facts, the 2^nd Admitted Facts, the trial judge’s summing-up and the sentence.  

19.Lastly, also in the evidence are transcripts of two meetings in February and March 2016 in which the plaintiff says that Ma confessed to his misappropriation of funds.

Procedural history

20.The plaintiff commenced the action on 10 March 2016.  On the same day, it obtained a mareva injunction against Ma on an ex parte basis.  The injunction included an ancillary order compelling him to disclose his assets.  The injunction has since been varied and continued until trial or further order of the court and the frozen sum revised to the Sum.

21.Contempt proceedings were brought against Ma in May 2017 for breach of the injunction.  After trial, in February 2018, he was found to have dissipated his assets in breach of the injunction.  He was found to have made use of his credit cards and spent substantial sums on personal services like massage parlours and night club to maintain his extraordinary lavish lifestyle.  He also made purchases of consumer goods and services for himself to maintain the high standard of living which he was accustomed to: [2018] HKCFI 176 at paras 51, 58, 59, 61, 64, 67 and 70. 

22.Ma filed an amended defence in November 2017, when he was still legally represented.  He pleaded that an “Agreed Arrangement” existed and pursuant to it, the Sum was transferred to him with the knowledge and authorisation of the plaintiff.  It was a device set up to overcome foreign exchange controls in mainland China so as to facilitate the plaintiff making payments to its service providers there.  In the premises, he should not be liable to the plaintiff in respect of the Sum.

23.The plaintiff denies that the Agreed Arrangement existed.

24.On 30 April 2018, Master Ho made an unless order directing Ma to exchange witness statements.  Ma failed to do so by the deadline.  He was therefore debarred from adducing witness evidence at trial.  Furthermore, Ma elected not to attend the trial.  The upshot of all these is that there is no evidence before the court proving the Agreed Arrangement at all.

25.At the conclusion of the trial, Mr Wong applied for the continuation of the mareva injunction for 12 months in the event that judgment is entered against Ma.

The plaintiff’s case

26.It is first necessary to understand how the plaintiff settles payments to its third party service providers in the ordinary course of business.  It involves, first, the plaintiff obtaining funds from Hyundai Korea and, second, the plaintiff making the payments to the service providers via its bank’s online banking system.  Tsang, Jung and SC Park gave evidence in this respect.

27.The plaintiff makes use of the “Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing” system (“the SAP System”).  It is a group-wide computer system for accounting, procurement and asset management.  

28.The operation department would receive the bill from the service provider.  Its staff would input details of the bill into the SAP System, including the invoice date, the due date and the amount.  The staff in the Accounts Payable section would then verify the entries in the SAP System against the hard copy invoice to ensure accuracy.  After that, the Accounts Payable staff (either Tsang or Ling)  would submit the payment request to Hyundai Korea.

29.Hyundai Korea would remit the money to the plaintiff’s bank account with HSBC in Hong Kong. 

30.The Accounts Payable staff would settle the bill and make payment to the service provider using the funds via HSBC’s online payment platform.  The process would go through three tiers of online authorisation. The individual assigned to each tier would log on to the online platform by using his own user identification number and his own online banking token, which would generate a one-time password for logging on.

(1)  At the first level, either Tsang or Ling would log on to the online system to create a payment instruction.  A hard copy payment order would be printed out.

(2)  At the second level, the manager of the Accounts Payable section, ie Ma, would approve the instruction online.

(3)  Finally, the Managing Director or General Manager would log on to give final approval to the instruction.

(4)  A hard copy payment advice would be printed out and filed for record.

31.In addition to his role in the three-tiered authorisation as described above, Ma was also one of three “system administrators” responsible for applying for and setting up online banking tokens for the plaintiff.  The other two “system administrators” would be the General Manager and the Managing Director.  Any two “system administrators” together would be able to alter and reduce the levels of authorisations required to effect transfers via the online platform.

32.According to the investigation of the plaintiff, Ma adopted the following modus operandi to misappropriate the plaintiff’s funds in the payment process.

33.Ma took advantage of the plaintiff’s practice that not all invoices would be settled on time.  Many of the service providers were willing to indulge the plaintiff by giving long grace periods for outstanding invoices because of the volume of its orders. 

34.From time to time, Ma would give instructions to the staff in the Accounts Payable section to request remittances from Hyundai Korea for a selection of the outstanding invoices.  However, when the funds were received, only part of them would actually be used to settle some of the selected invoices.  Ma would direct the remainder of the funds to be transferred to his personal bank accounts.  The payment requests would then go through the authorisations on the bank’s online payment platform.  Hard copy payment instructions would only be generated for remittances genuinely applied towards outstanding invoices.  No hard copy records would be produced for transfers made to Ma.

35.It is Tsang’s evidence that transfers to Ma’s bank accounts happened frequently. 

36.As an illustration, she referred to a table setting out the invoices issued by Hong Kong International Terminals Limited (“HIT”), one of the major vendors in Hong Kong, and for which payment requests had been made to Hyundai Korea on 12 November 2014.  The total amount was $7,535,624.50.  The invoices were dated between 3 and 11 September 2014.

37.The record printed out from the SAP System shows that Hyundai Korea made the remittance of the requested amount and the plaintiff received the money on 13 November 2014.  According to Tsang, Ma made a manual marking against the figure of $1,438,544 appearing on that page.  The figure represented one of the four tranches, which together made up the total remittance.  That marking indicated that the sum should be transferred to Ma’s bank accounts whereas the remainder sum of $6,097,080.50 would be paid to HIT.  The sum of $1,438,544 was transferred to Ma’s bank account on 13 November 2014, as shown in the payment advice issued by the bank.  As for the remainder sum, the internal records show that it was in fact not used to settle the September invoices.  Instead, they were used to settle some older outstanding invoices dated April 2014.

38.Tsang explained that in general she had found Ma’s requests suspicious.  She had enquired with him about them a few times over the years.  But Ma told her that the monies transferred to his bank accounts would eventually be transferred back to Hyundai Korea, the arrangement was in fact requested by Hyundai Korea, and there was no need to inform the General Manager or the Managing Director about the arrangement. 

39.On one occasion, Tsang asked Ma on the plaintiff’s internal messaging system whether Moon and the Managing Director knew about the arrangement.  Ma replied that Moon knew and asked Tsang not to worry and the payments were all “normal payments”.  A copy of the text messages is produced.  The date of the messages is not known.

40.As to how Ma managed to effect the online transfers to his bank accounts, the plaintiff’s case is this.  Ma had wrongfully made use of online banking tokens of the General Managers and the Managing Directors to authorise the payments to himself.  He had no authority to do so. He had also at times abused his right as “system administrator” to re-configure the standard three-tier authorisation adopted by the plaintiff and alter it to require only one level of authorisation to approve the payment instructions. 

41.In support of the above, the plaintiff has produced in the evidence a full list of the authorisations granted for the 260 transactions.  The list is generated by the bank. The table shows the apparent identity of the individuals who logged on to the online system to authorise the payment in respect of each transaction.  Separately, BW Park has compiled a table summarising the information.   I shall refer to the two tables as “the authorisation records”.

42.It is the plaintiff’s case that Ma applied for and controlled multiple online tokens belonging to the General Managers and the Managing Directors and used them to authorise payments to himself.  This was done without the authority of the plaintiff.

(1)  The authorisation records show that Jung had authorised payments to Ma on dates when he was absent from the office.  Before he took leave, he had given his token to Ma.  Upon his return, he retrieved the token from Ma but did not cross-check whether any transactions had been approved using his token in his absence.

(2)  Kim Ji Taek was the Managing Director from February 2009 to December 2011.  The authorisation records show that he had given authorisation for payments in 2012, after he had already left.  The 2012 payments could not have been authorised by him.  When a search was conducted in March 2016, a banking token bearing Kim Ji Taek’s name was found inside Ma’s drawer.

(3)  Likewise, Sohn Hyunjoo left the plaintiff’s office in January 2013. However, according to the authorisation records, he approved payments to Ma between January 2013 and March 2015.  These payments could not have been authorised by him.

(4)  A large number of transfers were authorised by KH Kim according to the authorisation records.  During the subsequent meeting when the plaintiff confronted Ma about the transfers, he handed up two banking tokens bearing KH Kim’s name.

(5)  Lastly, according to the authorisation records, there are three transfers which were authorised by Moon in February 2015.  A banking token bearing his name was later found in Ma’s drawer during a search conducted in March 2016. 

43.The discovery of Ma’s misappropriations came about as follows.

44.After SC Park became the General Manager, he started to review the ledgers and accounting records of the plaintiff and Hyundai Korea.  In around October 2015, he discovered that there were huge discrepancies in the ledger between HIT and Hyundai Korea.  He started to make enquiries with HIT and conducted an investigation.  He requested assistance from Hyundai Korea and BS Kim was sent to the Hong Kong office to help with the investigation.

45.Eventually, the misappropriations by Ma were uncovered.  A number of meetings were held with Ma in which he made confessions about the misappropriations.

(1)  On 29 February 2016, SC Park questioned Ma.  Ma confessed that he had embezzled money from the plaintiff.  He said he would be able to repay the money on the condition that the plaintiff would not report the incident to the police.  He would need one to two years to fully repay the money as he needed time to dispose of his properties in mainland China and Australia.

(2)  On the same day, SC Park, BS Kim and KH Kim met with Ma again.  An audio recording was taken.  The transcript is produced in the evidence.  Ma revealed that he had been embezzling money from the plaintiff since around 2010 or 2011 and he had used the funds to purchase real properties in Hong Kong, mainland China and Australia.

(3)  On 2 March 2016, SC Park met with Ma again.  Ma confessed that he had been using the online banking tokens belonging to the General Manager and the Managing Director to authorise the payments online.  He also admitted that he had re-configured the authorisation level so that only one level of authorisation using the General Manager or the Managing Director’s token would be required to effect the transfer, after the payment instruction was created online.  He said that he had applied for and was managing multiple online banking tokens.

(4)  This was followed by a further meeting on the same day between SC Park, BS Kim, KH Kim and Ma.  An audio recording of that meeting was taken.  The transcript is in the evidence.  He made various offers to compensate the plaintiff for the misappropriated funds.  He also handed over three online banking tokens, two of which were labelled “KH Kim”.

46.Ma was summarily dismissed on 4 March 2016.  The matter was reported to the police on the same day.

47.In this action, the plaintiff further relies on Ma’s conviction in the criminal proceedings in support of its case.  The plaintiff contends that the conviction is highly relevant in that the criminal conviction relates to the 260 transactions in the present action.  The evidence in the criminal case also showed the modus operandi of Ma, ie he had dishonestly made use of the online banking tokens issued to others to bypass the normal three-tier authorisation adopted by the plaintiff.  The evidence also showed that once the funds were transferred to Ma, he dealt with them as if he were the owner and spent them for his and others’ benefit.  The evidence also included the four confessions made by Ma to the plaintiff.

48.Mr Wong placed reliance on what D’Almada Remedios J, the trial judge, said when she sentenced Ma:

“The jury have found you guilty after trial of four offences of theft. Their verdict to you no doubt would not have been unexpected. This was and is an extremely serious breach of trust by you in stealing a colossal sum of $386,955,303.70 from your employer Hyundai Hong Kong over a period of about seven years between 20 April 2009 to 18 February 2016 by transferring the amounts of money in 260 transactions on the Internet banking online system using security tokens in the name of the Korean managers or managing directors without their knowledge.

… As system administrator, you were the one who received the tokens and were the one in charge of obtaining tokens from HSBC. You were able to create and obtain tokens issued to managing directors. Some general managers had even given you their own tokens and passwords to use whilst they were away on business trips and on holidays.

These tokens were used by you to steal the money. You used tokens which you were not authorised to use or obtain, and you transferred money to yourself without their knowledge or authorisation, and in doing so, sometimes changed the authorisation levels.

Although the company had a three-tier system using the tokens authorisation payment to vendor, they thought it safe, that is, you were the second approver not being able to make payments and only the Korean general managers were able to authorise the payment to vendors. This system was simply exploited by you. You were very much in charge of the accounting section dealing with payment to vendors. …

Once the money was deposited into your personal accounts, you almost immediately transferred the money to your other bank accounts or to pay your credit-card expenses to the tune of over $200 million. The credit card showed huge spending of money at casinos in Macau, buying luxury goods. You bought properties in Hong Kong.

There was of course a lack of supervision. Understandably, they placed 100 per cent trust in you, as Mr Park said, in dealing with banking matters.  This was purely a calculated and simple theft. You abused the trust the company placed in you for almost seven years.  The fact that you were able to get away with it for so long is part of a reflection of the degree of trust that was placed in you.  You took advantage of this lack of supervision and the trust they placed in you.  This was, in my view, a wholly premeditated, calculating theft by a dishonest man that you are.”

49.Mr Wong submitted that Ma’s conviction is relevant and the court should accord significant weight to it in the present action.

50.As to Ma’s pleaded case on the Agreed Agreement, the plaintiff denies that it existed.  The plaintiff has an established way of settling invoices issued by vendors or suppliers in mainland China.  It did not involve remitting money through Ma in any way. 

Evaluation of the evidence

51.In this action, the burden is on the plaintiff to make out the case that Ma had misappropriated the Sum belonging to the plaintiff in the 262 transactions without the authority or consent of the plaintiff. 

52.It is indisputable that the 262 transactions took place between 2009 and 2016, and sums of money amounting in total to the Sum were transferred from the plaintiff’s bank accounts to Ma’s personal bank accounts. 

53.It is the plaintiff’s case that the funds should have been used to settle outstanding invoices of the service providers. Instead, Ma misappropriated the funds for his own use.

54.In respect of the first two transactions, the documentary evidence comprised the plaintiff’s bank statements showing the transfers.  In respect of the 260 transactions, the documentary evidence comprised not only the bank statements, but also the authorisation records and other documents. 

55.The plaintiff’s witnesses testified to how Ma had abused his access to, and administrative rights, in respect of the plaintiff’s online banking platform, retained and misused the online banking tokens belonging to other officers of the plaintiff to authorise the transfers of the plaintiff’s funds to his personal bank accounts.

56.The plaintiff’s case against Ma is inherently plausible, fully supported by the extensive contemporaneous documents, and hence credible.  Ma has made no attempt in these proceedings to adduce evidence to contradict its case.  Furthermore, in respect of the 260 transactions, the court should accept the criminal conviction of Ma in HCCC 20/2018 as proof that he had stolen the sum of $386,955,303.70 from the plaintiff in those transactions.

57.For the above reasons, I accept the plaintiff’s factual case in full.

Rulings

58.While an employment relationship does not automatically import fiduciary relations, a senior employee or manager, depending on his role and function, can be held to owe fiduciary duties to the employer when carrying out those duties.  Where an employee is entrusted with the company’s money and diverts it for his own benefit, he would likely be in breach of the fiduciary relations: Leader Screws Manufacturing Company Limited v Huang Shunkui [2021] HKCFI 141, paras 46 to 49.

59.On the facts as found, Ma was entrusted with the task of settling the vendors’ invoices and had a significant role to play in the operation of the plaintiff’s bank accounts.  I hold that he owed fiduciary duties to the plaintiff in the authorisation process and he was in breach of such fiduciary duties. 

60.Ma was also in breach of his implied duty of fidelity by misappropriating the assets of the plaintiff.

61.Furthermore, on the facts as found, Ma had converted the online banking tokens to his own use in breach of confidence.  By making use of the tokens to effect the 262 transactions and transfer the Sum to himself, he committed the tort of conversion.

62.In closing submissions, the plaintiff confirmed that it would elect to seek equitable compensation equal to the Sum from Ma for his breach of fiduciary duties, instead of seeking an account of profits.  It also seeks compound interest at the rate of 1% above prime rate, with monthly resets, accruing from the date of transfer in respect of each of the 262 transactions: Tam Po Kei v Tam Bo Kin (No 2) [2011] 2 HKLRD 272, para 7.

63.Compound interest may be appropriate where (1)  the breaches of fiduciary duties are by way of fraud or misconduct, (2)  the breaches benefit the defaulting fiduciary personally, or (3)  the fiduciary has misappropriated funds.  The court assumes that the misappropriated funds would have been used by the fiduciary to earn profits and, instead of ordering an account of those profits, orders him to pay compound interest on the sums extracted: see, eg, Leader Screws at paras 62 to 63.

64.In the present case, Ma acted dishonestly and misappropriated a colossal sum of money from the plaintiff over a long period of time, when the plaintiff at all times placed complete trust in him in handling its bank accounts.  I am satisfied that it is an appropriate case to award compound interest.

Post-judgment injunction

65.I am also satisfied that the mareva injunction which is currently in place should be extended for a period of 12 months, as sought by the plaintiff at the closing stage. 

66.It is plain that Ma acted dishonestly in misappropriating the plaintiff’s funds in the 262 transactions.  Worse still, while the injunction was in place, he was in breach of it by dissipating his assets, as found in the contempt proceedings: see para 21 above.  All these show that there continues to be a real risk of dissipation if Ma is not restrained from dealing with his assets up to the value of the Sum.

67.I accept that the 12-month period asked for by the plaintiff is reasonable.  As Mr Wong submitted, Ma’s properties include real properties.  It is reasonably expected that the execution process will take some time.

68.Lastly, I should record that subsequent to the trial, Ma wrote to the court a number of times, asking for the mareva injunction to be varied for the frozen sum to be reduced so as to allow him to pursue his appeal against the criminal conviction.  The court has informed Ma that his application for variation by letter on an ex parte basis would not be entertained.  He was asked to take out an inter partes summons and, where appropriate, file a supporting affidavit if he wished to pursue the variation application.  To date, he has not taken out any summons to vary the injunction.

Conclusion

69.For the above reasons, I order that judgment be entered in favour of the plaintiff against Ma for the Sum.  There be compound interest at the rate of 1% above prime rate, with monthly resets, accruing, in respect of each transaction, on the transferred sum from the date of the transaction and up to the date of judgment.  After that, simple interest accrues on the Sum at judgment rate until payment.

70.I further order that the mareva injunction be continued for 12 months from the date of the handing down of this judgment or further order of the court.

71.I make an order nisi that the plaintiff do have costs of the action, including the costs of the extension of the injunction and any costs reserved, to be taxed if not agreed, with certificate for two counsel. 

Mr Jonathan Wong and Ms Jacquelyn Ng, instructed by MinterEllison LLP, for the plaintiff

The 1^st defendant was not represented and was absent at the trial