The Court of First Instance has ordered Starlight Culture Entertainment Group Limited’s (Starlight) former chairman Mr Tong Shek Lun and two former executive directors, Ms Kinny Ko Lai King and Ms Regina Chung Wai Yu, to pay a sum of US$890,241.37 as compensation to Starlight following findings of misconduct in connection with their handling of the company’s disposal of subsidiaries in September 2008.
The Court also ordered that Tong, Ko and Chung be disqualified from being directors or being involved in the management of any listed or unlisted corporation for five to seven years.
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission’s (SFC) investigation found, and Tong, Ko and Chung accepted, that:
- the trio had caused and/or procured Starlight to reduce the consideration for the disposal by US$1 million without proper justification and/or against the best interest of Starlight;
- they had diverted a mature business opportunity of Starlight to provide consultancy services to the purchaser to Tong’s private company, Extract Group Limited, which in turn received a secret profit of US$1 million;
- they had failed to ensure Starlight had fully complied with the Listing Rules by failing to disclose the arrangement of the consultancy service agreement and Tong’s interests therein.