Counsel: Judge failed to give significance to intimacy of Chan's relationship to Wang

Fung shui master Tony Chan has begun his appeal against the ruling which threw out his claim to the estimated HK$100 billion fortune of the late property tycoon Nina Wang.

When the case opened Monday, Chan's counsel advanced that the trial judge in the case had underestimated the intimacy of the relationship between Chan and Nina Wang.

Senior Counsel Ian Mill presented photo and video evidence in support of the argument. There was a short video clip showing Wang wearing shorts and a tank top, perched on a SUV, asking what Chan would do if his "darling" fell off when the car started.

Mill argued the video, in which the two referred to each other as "silly pig" and "daddy", along with several pictures, showed the two had a loving relationship akin to husband and wife.

Mill said the original trial judge, Justice Johnson Lam, who found Chan's will a highly skilled simulation, had also failed to recognize the implications of some HK$3 billion Wang had given to Chan as gifts over the years, bolstering his claim to becoming her heir.

Mill argued that Lam's judgment was biased, which he ascribed to the judge's moral indignation over the relationship between the two. Mill added it was improbable that Chan would take the risk of fraudulently laying claim to Wang's billions given he was already well-off financially. The counsel added it was improbable that the document which Chan claimed to be a will drawn up in 2006 was a forgery, given the meticulous need to forge three different handwriting styles, signatures and chops.

Wang herself had become embroiled in a probate battle with her father-in-law over the estate of her late husband. Teddy Wang, former head of the Chinachem Group, was kidnapped in 1990 and never seen again. He was declared legally dead in 1999. Nina Wang eventually prevailed in a seesaw battle that went to the Court of Final Appeal.

Chan, 51, held a variety of odd jobs before becoming a fung shui master. Chinachem, the plaintiff at the High Court Trial, argued Chan had duped the billionaire with promises that he could find her husband and clear her of the cancer that eventually took her life.

Chan's claim to the Chinachem fortune surfaced after Wang's death, when Chan filed for probate, a will written in 2006, which bequeathed her entire estate to him.

Chinachem Charitable Foundation, which was awarded by Wang's estate last year, has relied on a 2002 will that leaves monies for charitable works.

Police tests on Chan's 2006 will are still ongoing. Chan, who is now free on HK$5 million police bail, is being pressed by the Inland Revenue Department for some HK$350 million in unpaid taxes.

Chan's counsel said he will continue to argue Justice Lam was wrong when he rejected the evidence given by Chan's wife and another witness.

Chan's 10-day case continues before appeal judges Doreen Le Pichon, Anthony Rogers and Susan Kwan today.

China Daily

(HK Edition 01/11/2011 page1)