Citic Pacific, the Beijing-backed steelmaker and property developer, yesterday lost a two-year battle to block a Hong Kong police fraud investigation into its failure to disclose a HK$15.5 billion derivatives loss it racked up in September 2008.
In the Court of First Instance, Mr Justice Alan Wright ruled that the state-owned enterprise should hand over documents it has been fighting to keep out of police hands.
Based on a review of six documents being contested, he said: 'There is a prima facie case of the existence of conspiracy to defraud.'
Citic Pacific did not admit to its losses from an unauthorised punt on the Australian dollar until six weeks after they occurred.
The company, which is part of the massive Citic conglomerate, was raided by the Commercial Crime Bureau in April 2009. Police seized boxes of files and computers from the company's Hong Kong office.
A few days later, former Citic Pacific chairman Larry Yung Chi-kin and managing director Henry Fan Hung-ling, resigned.
