Orion Engineered Carbons Gmbh v. Gan Yuqi (also known as Gan Yu Qi) and Others
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HCA 322/2025 [2026] HKCFI 5828 IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE ACTION NO 322 OF 2025 ____________
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__________________________________ REASONS FOR DECISION __________________________________ 1.At the hearing today, I made orders to the effect that unless within 28 days the Plaintiff takes various steps towards effecting service on certain of the Defendants (such as lodging with the court a request for service on that defendant at a mainland address, or applying to the court for substituted service), the injunction against that defendant should stand discharged. I now set out my brief reasons for so doing. 2.Ex parte injunctions were obtained against the Defendants as long ago as 18th February 2025. The matter has come before the court on numerous occasions. On 16th May 2025, the matter came before me. On that occasion, I made observations regarding the dilatory approach to service which had been taken by the Plaintiff and its legal team, despite the Plaintiff’s undertaking to serve the writ, injunctions and summons for continuation as soon as practicable. The importance of proper compliance with a plaintiff’s undertaking was raised again at the hearing of 4th July 2026. See [2026] 2 HKLRD 1110. 3.Since that time, the matter has come before the court again in November 2025, January 2026 and July 2026 at which the Plaintiff obtained further continuations of the injunctions on an ex parte basis. 4.The matter came before me again today. The Plaintiff’s solicitors say that since the last hearing of 17th July 2026, they have learnt that service on some of the defendants who have not yet been served has been unsuccessful (“the Known Unserved Defendants”). Yet another three months of continuation of the ex parte injunctions was sought, so that the Plaintiff could wait to find out whether service on further Defendants had succeeded, and to consider whether further attempts at service should be made. 5.In fact, the Plaintiff has already known for many months that service on most of the Known Unserved Defendants was unsuccessful. The Plaintiff’s solicitors received notifications between February and June 2026 to this effect. Despite such awareness, no further steps have been taken in the interim to deal with these Known Unserved Defendants, whether by attempting service on a different address or otherwise. The justification was that the Plaintiff wished to deal with all of them in one go. On any view, this does not amount to effecting service as soon as practicable. From a defendant’s point of view, the fact that there are other defendants in the action and that the plaintiff wants to enjoy the convenience of dealing with them all in one go cannot provide a justification for delaying service to this extent. As I have commented over a year ago ([2026] 2 HKLRD 1110 at [23], [38]), it seems that the Plaintiff does not take seriously its undertaking to the court to effect service as soon as practicable. 6.The solicitor appearing on behalf of the Plaintiff today was not in a position to give any undertaking as to when steps would actually be taken to resolve the issue of non-service on the Known Unserved Defendants, so a continuation of the injunctions could not be granted on the basis of any such undertaking. 7.It was suggested that the court could instead order that the Plaintiff take steps towards service. However, whether or not the Plaintiff wishes to pursue any particular Defendant is a matter for the Plaintiff; the court will not compel it to do so. It is just that if the Plaintiff does not carry out its undertaking to effect service promptly, it should not be entitled to the continued benefit of ex parte injunctive relief which was granted against such an undertaking. 8.I did not find it appropriate to give yet another open-ended, months-long extension of the ex parte injunctions. An ex parte order is the exception rather than the norm. In the circumstances, I made unless orders as indicated above.
Ms Michelle Leung of Tanner De Witt, for the Plaintiff | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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