Ocean System Ltd and Another v. Mtr Corporation Ltd and Another

On 8 October 2026, Deputy High Court Judge Jonathan Wong handed down judgment in Ocean System Ltd v MTR Corporation Ltd [2026] HKCFI 5668, giving mixed rulings on two case-management applications arising from an alleged HVAC nuisance at Admirality Centre. Mr William Wong SC (leading Mr Jonathan Chan), instructed by Ip, Kwan & Co, acted for the Plaintiffs; Ms Audrey Eu SC (leading Mr Albert Chan), instructed by Lo & Lo, acted for the 1st Defendant (MTR).

The Plaintiffs are the owner and tenant of an office on the 6th floor of Tower 1, Admirality Centre. The tenant is the firm Ip, Kwan & Co, with one of its partners, Ms Corrina Kwan, being a director of the owner company. They allege that since October 2022, "bong" noises and strong vibrations from the building's HVAC system have affected their office multiple times daily. MTR is the building manager; the 2nd Defendant, Jardine Engineering, was at all material times the HVAC contractor (since replaced by Young's Engineering). Proceedings were commenced in August 2023, but pleadings only closed in August 2025, with nine expert reports already filed.

Two applications came on for hearing together: MTR's summons for a joint inspection of noise and vibration at the office and the 4/F plant room, and the Plaintiffs' summons for specific discovery. The discovery sought was narrowed progressively from 70 classes, to 18, to 3 at the substantive hearing. The Plaintiffs had also shifted their expert focus during the proceedings, from chillers and pumps (the "Original Cause") to the opening and closure of valves in the piping system (the "Additional Cause").

The Court held that: (1) the joint inspection should proceed in accordance with MTR's Method Statement, limited to the chillers and pumps, without awaiting discovery. The Judge amended CMC Summons §4(a) to define the inspection as a factual exercise in correlation, and dismissed the suggestion that operating conditions would be manipulated (§4.8); (2) Class 3 discovery, comprising BMS records from 21 August 2025 to date for plant, equipment and valves connected to the BMS on specified floors, should be allowed against MTR only, but refined to cover only Zone Valves and Subsidiary Zone Valves (§5.11); (3) Class 2 (O&M Manuals) and Class 1 (plans showing valve locations) were refused, because relevance depends on whether Class 3 records first disclose which valves correlate with the noise, after which any further request can be more precisely framed (§§5.19–5.20, 5.25–5.26); (4) the remaining parts of the discovery summons were adjourned sine die with liberty to restore, rather than dismissed (§6.5).

For practitioners, the lesson is straightforward: when discovery is sought to underpin a future inspection, the test is necessity at the present stage of the proceedings. Speculative classes framed on the assumption that future investigations will justify them should wait until those investigations yield concrete leads. Courts will grant targeted disclosure, narrowly confined to the parties' actual pleaded disputes, and adjourn the rest pending further evidence rather than entertain open-ended fishing exercises.