Litigation & Dispute Resolution

On 11 July 2025, the Hong Kong Government gazetted the Construction Industry Security of Payment Rules (“Rules”)[1]. The Rules, made by the Chief Judge of the High Court under section 50 of the Construction Industry Security of Payment Ordinance (Cap 652) (“SOP Ordinance”), provide the practice and procedure to be followed in respect of applications to set aside or enforce a determination made in adjudication proceedings (“Applications”) under sections 48 and 49 of the SOP Ordinance.

In PI 1 and PI 2 v MR [1], the Hong Kong Court of First Instance (“Court”) dismissed the plaintiffs’ application to set aside an arbitral tribunal’s decision that it did have jurisdiction to hear a dispute. It is noteworthy that in this case, the Court applied a Privy Council decision on Cayman Islands law in determining whether the claims brought against a Cayman Islands company, in an arbitration seated in Hong Kong, were arbitrable. There were good reasons for this, as explained below.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a per curiam opinion vacating the FTC’s Click-to-Cancel Rule based on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s failure to comply with a procedural requirement in the FTC Act. This means that clients do not have to meet the July 14, 2025, compliance date but should be mindful of continuing state legal requirements as well as any future developments that could change their compliance obligations.

In our previous article titled Fraud Cases: Hong Kong Court’s Jurisdiction on the Grant of Vesting Orders, our team discussed the remedy of vesting orders in providing relief to victims of internet fraud in recovering their assets that have been siphoned away by fraudsters. The case that was discussed in that article, Hypertec Systems Inc v Yifim Ltd (HCA 1308/2021, HCMP 1829/2021, 18 February 2022) was in favour of a more proactive judicial approach – that the court does have jurisdiction to grant a vesting order in favour of the victim in recovering their assets. In Hypertec, the court did grant a vesting order in favour of the victim. However, decisions since the case of Hypertec have taken a different view on whether the court does have jurisdiction to grant a vesting order. The latest one in this continuing line of undulation is Orion Engineered Carbons GmBH v Universall All Limited and ors (HCA 1625/2024, HCMP 210/2025, 30 May 2025). In Orion, the judge decided to adopt the approach that a vesting order should not be granted in favour of the victim, and instead the victim of internet fraud has recourse only to the conventional remedy of a garnishee order in recovering their siphoned assets. In this article, we revisit the state of the law in Hong Kong on vesting orders and the implications in practice to remedies available to victims of fraud in recovery of their assets.