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.

In the case of A v B & ors [2024] HKCFI 751 (date of reasons for decision: 13 March 2024) the Hong Kong court set aside an order granted to enforce an arbitral award dated 25 August 2022 made by the sole arbitrator in an arbitration at the International Center for Dispute Resolution, under the Rules for International Commercial Arbitration of the American Arbitration Association (“Arbitration”), on the grounds that the Arbitrator had failed to give reasons for her decisions on key issues.

This note considers the current state of the law in Hong Kong with respect to foreign illegality and whether it can set aside defences of bona fide purchaser for value without notice or change of position, in the context of fraud schemes where the fraud proceeds in one way or another were transferred to the recipient by way of currency exchange arrangements.

In P v D [2024] HKCFI 1123 (judgment date: 30 April 2024), the Hong Kong Court of First Instance dismissed an application, pursuant to section 26 of the Arbitration Ordinance, by the challenging party (“P”) to remove two arbitrators (“Impugned Arbitrators”) in an HKIAC administered arbitration governed by the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, pursuant to section 26 of the Arbitration Ordinance (Cap. 609).