Hong Kong: eight remaining overseas judges

Lawrence Collins and Jonathan Sumption, former UK supreme court justices, announced their resignations on Thursday. “I have resigned from the court of final appeal because of the political situation in Hong Kong, but I continue to have the fullest confidence in the court and the total independence of its members,” Lord Collins said.

Their departures mean that of the eight remaining overseas judges on Hong Kong’s court of final appeal (CFA), three are from the UK.

Overseas judges on Hong Kong’s top court have been a fixture of the city’s legal system, which unlike mainland China’s is derived from English common law, since the handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

[June 6 2024 money transfers through Vietnam ]

Judges said that Eric Chu Nap Kee,, as a foreigner who does not speak Vietnamese, trusted his wife in approving the documents without knowing their purposes.
A ‘ real estate tycoon’ and her accomplices illegally transported about US$4.5 billion across the border for 10 years Truong My Lan served as chairwoman of Van Thinh Phat Holdings and prosecutors said she illegally controlled more than 90 per cent of Saigon Commercial Bank, or SCB by paying 27 individuals and entities to acquire stakes in the institution. The October 2022 arrest of Lan, 67, led to a bank run on SCB. The central bank eventually took over the institution.

Lan is appealing the death sentence given to her in April after being found guilty of charges including bribing government officials, violating bank lending rules and embezzling funds.

Chairman of Times Square Vietnam, Hong Kong property magnate Eric Chu was given a nine-year prison sentence on Thursday for aiding his wife, Truong My Lan, in a fraud that led to a VND677 trillion ($27 billion) loss at Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB).