How did the court assess the 2011 exclusive management contract’s origin?

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The court said the 2011 exclusive management contract was likely created after tax scrutiny began
The Hong Kong High Court assessed the origin of the purported 2011 exclusive management contract by concluding it was highly likely to have been created by Samuel Yu’s younger brother after the Inland Revenue Department began investigating a HK$40 million payment AEG made to Cecilia Cheung in July 2011. The judge found that the contract Cheung relied on was not properly signed and treated the document’s background as unreliable. The court’s assessment was part of its broader finding that Yu failed to establish the foundation of his case.
The trigger for the court’s timeline assessment was the July 2011 HK$40 million payment
The court tied its view of the contract’s origin to the start of an Inland Revenue Department investigation after AEG made a HK$40 million payment to Cheung in July 2011. It concluded that a purported 2011 exclusive management contract was “highly likely” to have been created after that investigative trigger, rather than existing in the way Yu claimed. This timing formed the core of how the court assessed where the document came from.
The judge said the contract Yu relied on was never signed by Cheung
Beyond the contract’s suspected creation point, the court ruled that Cheung never signed the exclusive management agreement Yu relied upon. That finding undermined the contractual basis of the claim and shaped how the origin of the document was treated in the case. In effect, the court viewed both the provenance and the signature status as failing to support Yu’s position.
The origin finding was linked to wider credibility and evidence concerns
The court described Yu as an “incredible” witness, saying he was evasive and gave internally inconsistent evidence on multiple issues. It also said Yu demonstrated poor business ethics through his willingness to forge documents to mislead tax authorities. Against that backdrop, the court’s conclusion that the 2011 contract was likely created after the tax investigation began was presented as consistent with its assessment of the evidence.
The court accepted Cheung’s testimony while questioning key information around the contract
The High Court accepted Cheung’s testimony as credible, while being less complimentary about her assistant, Emily Chow Ching-yi, who the ruling said appeared to have withheld key information surrounding the preparation of the disputed 2011 contract. That combination meant the court treated Cheung’s account as reliable, even as it scrutinised what was known about how the contract was prepared. The court’s origin assessment therefore rested on both its timeline conclusion and its evaluation of credibility and document handling.

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How did the court assess the 2011 exclusive management contract’s origin?

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