Chinese Estates' Joseph Lau passes baton to son after graft conviction

Joseph Lau Luen-hung yesterday resigned from the post of chairman of Chinese Estates after being convicted in Macau last week of bribing officials and money laundering, passing on the baton to his son Lau Ming-wai.

Lau was handed a jail term of five years and three months on Friday on corruption charges. As Macau and Hong Kong do not have an extradition agreement, Lau will not need to serve the sentence as long as he does not set foot in Macau.

An appeal against the verdict filed by Lau was accepted by the Court of First Instance of Macau, the company said in an announcement on the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday.

With acceptance of the application to appeal, the conviction order stands suspended and will not be enforced until there is a final ruling.

However, market observers pointed out that the court verdict said Joseph Lau had always controlled Moon Ocean, the developer of troubled Macau property project La Scala, whereas the company's announcements in 2005 and 2011 said Moon Ocean was owned by an independent third party before being acquired by the company.

These discrepancies between the verdict and the company's previous announcements might lead to further actions by Hong Kong regulators, they said.