Article

Note: Defendant served as Director for three different companies that either was the applicant or beneficiary of four separate LCs. Evidence demonstrated that Director used his position to participate substantially in the signing and presenting of false documents to obtain payment on LCs totaling HK$62.3 million and to disburse the proceeds, HK$59.5 million of which was not recovered.

The court stated that "when [Director's] home was searched, the company chops for [two companies] were found together with documents relevant to the obtaining of [LCs] including a cargo receipt, a negotiation application and a draft of exchange, some of which bore some similarity to the false instruments itemised [sic] in the charges. Also found were two blank bill of lading forms matching those used to obtain three of the [LCs]. These bore a company name which had been falsely applied to them and one of them also carried the mark of a fake chop."

Director was arrested and charged with dealing with property related to a criminal offense. The District Court, Pang, J., found Director guilty, sentencing him to four years and nine months, dismissing Director's claim that he did not know of the falsity of the documents as a "pack of lies." On appeal, the High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Court of Appeal, Lunn, J. and Stuart-Moore, VP, in an opinion by Stuart-Moore, VP, dismissed the application for leave to appeal from the conviction and sentence of four years and nine months entered by the trial court.

Director claimed that he did not play a key role in the fraud, as the trial court concluded, but a minor one; that Director acted on behalf of a "prime mover." Because "the role played by [Director] was one which effectively could have been done by anyone and that there had been, contrary to the [trial court] judge's findings, nothing sophisticated about the disposal of the proceeds," Director appealed the length of his sentence as excessive. The High Court, in rejecting this argument, found "that the evidence revealed the applicant's hand at work at almost every stage of the fraudulent activities covered by the charge sheet," and that "the sentence imposed was one which fell at the lower end of the range to be expected in cases of this kind."

[JEB/jcs]

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