Litigation & Dispute Resolution

In two separate decisions in April 2025[1], the Hong Kong High Court first refused, but then allowed, an IT company’s application for an interlocutory injunction to enforce post-termination restrictive covenants against its former employee and his newly set-up rival company.

It is common for construction industry participants to source various machinery, materials or components from overseas for construction projects in Hong Kong, or to have part of the construction and fabrication or assembly works carried out outside Hong Kong before transporting them into Hong Kong. There are two pieces of recent legislation that have a potential impact on these “overseas” procurement activities. They are (i) the Sale of Goods (United Nations Convention) Ordinance (Cap. 641) which came into effect in December 2022, and (ii) the Construction Industry Security of Payment Ordinance (Cap. 652) which was gazetted on 27 December 2024, with the bulk of which coming into operation in August 2025. In this article, we will explore the changes brought about by these two pieces of legislation, and what those procuring such works or items should do and pay attention to when they source from international suppliers or contractors for construction projects in Hong Kong.

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) has the potential to make significant changes to various aspects of the practice of law. It is possible that many lawyers will incorporate AI in doing legal work, one way or the other and to some degree or other, in the foreseeable future. However, while AI is a powerful tool at lawyers’ disposal, work generated by AI can contain errors, and AI has the potential to “hallucinate”, i.e. make up false information or something that does not in fact exist. In two recent court cases in Canada and the UK, the lawyers submitted to the courts case authorities that did not exist, leading the other side’s lawyers and the court to suspect that those cases had been (mis-)generated by the use of AI.

In Sze Fung Engineering Limited v Trevi Construction Company Limited [2025] HKCA 278[1], the Hong Kong Court of Appeal (“CA”) ruled that the “back to back” wording in that case was not a “pay when paid” clause, but governed only the timing of payment.

The without prejudice (“WP”) rule generally prevents statements made in a genuine attempt to settle an existing dispute from being put before the court as evidence. Usually, these statements are made in communications between the opposing parties to a dispute. Can WP privilege attach to documents produced by third parties who are not parties to the dispute? This was a question before a deputy judge of the English High Court (“Court”) in BNP Paribas Depositary Services Ltd v Briggs & Forrester Engineering Services Ltd [2024] EWHC 2575 (TCC)[1].