Great Eagle matriarch loses battle for control of one of Hong Kong’s richest real estate clans as court sides with family trust manager HSBC
- Court of First Instance rules against Lo To Lee-kwan in her legal fight to stop son gaining full control of family business
- Co-founder also launched legal proceedings against HSBC International Trustee
A Hong Kong court on Wednesday ruled against the matriarch of Great Eagle, one of the city’s richest real estate clans, in her bid to prevent some of her children from taking control of the family conglomerate.
She wanted the trust manager removed because she said it was acting for one of her sons and had lost its impartiality.
But in a 247-page judgment, Mr Justice Wilson Chan Ka-shun said such a suggestion was without basis, and what had since escalated into a courtroom drama stemmed from the genuine, yet misguided, beliefs of Lo.
The matriarch suggested during the trial that it was commonly understood that she had strict control over the trust at the time it was formed, even though trust documents formulated four decades ago showed the HSBC arm had discretion to not follow.
