HK actress Cecilia Cheung wins court battle after judge dismisses ex-agent’s HK$12m claims

HONG KONG, June 18 — Actress Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi has emerged victorious in a years-long legal battle after a Hong Kong court dismissed a HK$12 million (RM6.26 million) claim brought by her former agent, according to South China Morning Post.

The lawsuit was filed by Asia Entertainment Group (AEG) president Samuel Yu Yuk-hing, who alleged that Cheung breached agreements to appear in several films produced by the company between 2011 and 2019.

But in a judgment handed down on Tuesday, Hong Kong’s High Court found Yu had failed to establish the foundation of his case, ruling that Cheung never signed the exclusive management agreement he relied upon and that there was insufficient proof she had received an advance payment tied to the projects.

The court found that a purported 2011 exclusive management contract was highly likely to have been “created” by Yu’s younger brother after Hong Kong’s Inland Revenue Department began investigating a HK$40 million payment AEG made to Cheung in July 2011.

The judge also ruled that Yu failed to prove he had paid Cheung HK$2.76 million as an advance for her performances in two AEG films between 2011 and 2014.

In a strongly worded judgment, Mr Justice Herbert Au-yeung Ho-wing described Yu as an “incredible” witness, finding that he was evasive and gave internally inconsistent evidence on multiple issues.

The judgment further said Yu demonstrated poor business ethics through his willingness to forge documents to mislead tax authorities.

While the court accepted Cheung’s testimony as credible, it was less complimentary about her assistant, Emily Chow Ching-yi, finding that she appeared to have withheld key information surrounding the preparation of the disputed 2011 contract.

The ruling brings to a close one of the more closely watched legal disputes involving the Hong Kong screen star, who had been accused of reneging on commitments to appear in multiple films over an eight-year period. Instead, the court concluded that the contractual basis for the multimillion-dollar claim had not been established.