Hong Kong In Focus: A Review Of Recent Arbitration-related Court Decisions

The Hong Kong courts have been active with a busy docket of arbitration-related cases in recent months.

In this post, we review a sample of 16 decisions which illustrate the approach of the Hong Kong courts to upholding arbitration agreements, supporting arbitral proceedings, enforcing arbitral awards and setting expectations of conduct in arbitration-related court proceedings.

The decisions featured listed companies, private companies, partnerships and individuals from Hong Kong, the mainland PRC, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands (which were also the top four jurisdictions of origin of parties to HKIAC arbitrations in 2024, as reported here) as well as the USA (which was sixth).

Just over one third of the decisions (six out of 16) were stated to relate to HKIAC arbitrations while just under one third (five out of 16) were stated to relate to arbitrations under the auspices of mainland PRC institutions or their Hong Kong branches (two others related to Hong Kong-seated arbitrations while the institution and seat were not identifiable from the remaining three decisions).

Five of the decisions were handed down by The Honourable Madam Justice Mimmie Chan, who has been the judge in charge of the Construction and Arbitration List of the Hong Kong Court of First Instance (CFI) since 2013. Seven other judges handed down the remaining 10 first instance decisions, with one decision being handed down by the Court of Appeal.

Upholding arbitration agreements

Upholding tribunals' jurisdiction

• The CFI dismissed a challenge to the jurisdiction of an HKIAC tribunal and an application for an anti-arbitration injunction advanced on the basis that the "centre of gravity" of certain claims was a different share purchase agreement, containing a separate arbitration agreement, to that under which the arbitration had been brought (XX, YY & Ors v. ZZ [2025] HKCFI 3089). Mimmie Chan J held that the relevant claims fell within the share purchase agreement and arbitration agreement pursuant to which the arbitration had been commenced, both as a matter of construction of that arbitration agreement and on the application of the "centre of gravity" test. The decision provides an example of a case in which a claimant attempted to commence a single arbitration under two contracts pursuant to Article 29 of the HKIAC Rules, but the HKIAC was not satisfied on a prima facie basis that the arbitration agreements were compatible. The claimant subsequently amended the notice of arbitration to proceed only under the arbitration agreement in the earlier agreement (with the court upholding the jurisdiction of the tribunal in that arbitration), and commenced a second arbitration under the arbitration agreement in the later agreement.
• An application for a blanket anti-arbitration injunction restraining a CIETAC Hong Kong arbitration in its entirety was dismissed, with only a limited injunction being granted to restrain a single claim for liquidated damages which was held to be vexatious, oppressive and an abuse of process in seeking to attack a prior CIETAC award rendered in Beijing (李鳳欣 and another v. Harvest Trade Investments Ltd [2025] HKCFI 2004). Deputy High Court Judge Jonathan Wong applied the legal principles on anti-arbitration injunctions set out in the 2023 Eton Properties decision (reported decision (reported here) and emphasised the exceptional nature of such relief (a point also stressed by Mimmie Chan J in XX, YY & Ors, discussed above). Because it was not "clear cut" that the various disputed issues other than the liquidated damages claim were res judicata or should or could have been raised in the Beijing arbitration (such as to engage the rule in Henderson v. Henderson), the court held that they should be left for adjudication by arbitration.

Staying court proceedings

• Hong Kong court proceedings brought by two US citizens who were shareholders in an RNA therapeutics biopharmaceutical company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange were stayed pursuant to an HKIAC arbitration clause in a shareholders' agreement (Re Sirnaomics Limited [2025] HKCFI 4284). The dispute centred on transfer restrictions on the individual shareholders' shares, which they claimed were in breach of the stock exchange listing rules, a "tripartite understanding" that free transferability would be maintained, and certain implied terms of the company's articles of association. Deputy High Court Judge Gary CC Lam rejected the individual shareholders' contention that their claims were "peripheral" and "tangential" to the shareholders' agreement, and held that the true substance of the dispute was the enforcement of a provision of that agreement which dealt with the imposition and removal of the transfer restriction.
• Fee disputes between solicitors and their clients were referred to arbitration in two decisions handed down by different judges. In A & B v. X [2025] HKCFI 2475, Deputy High Court Judge MK Liu rejected arguments that the solicitors had waived their right to arbitration by (i) taking steps in the court proceedings (which had preceded the introduction of allegations of negligence which materially changed the nature of the dispute) and (ii) an email advising the clients of their right to apply for taxation of the solicitors' bills by the Hong Kong courts. In Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (a firm) v. Sunshine Success Global Inc and Anor [2025] HKCFI 4567, Queeny Au-Yeung J referred allegations of solicitor's negligence and arguments in relation to several liability to HKIAC arbitration. Although the judge respectfully disagreed with a previous first instance decision handed down by Mimmie Chan J in Fung Hing Chiu Cyril v. Henry Wai & Co (a firm) [2018] 1 HKCFI 31 to the effect that applications for taxation of costs under the Legal Practitioners Ordinance (including issues of quantum) could be resolved by arbitration, she appeared to accept that questions of liability which were relevant to the taxation process could be resolved by arbitration.
• The CFI refused to grant a stay of proceedings in favour of arbitration where the claims were brought under a "second in time" settlement agreement which expressly provided that the arbitration clause in the original contract (a "sea-sand transportation and discharge contract" concluded in connection with the construction of a third runway at Hong Kong International Airport) did not apply to it (Kat Yue Construction Engineering Limited v. Fai Lee Construction (HK) Limited [2025] HKCFI 3298). The central question was whether the claims arose under the original contract (in which case the arbitration agreement would apply) or the settlement agreement (in which case it would not). Deputy High Court Judge Sir William Blair followed the approach in the English case of Monde Petroleum SA v. Westernzagros Ltd [2015] EWHC 67 (Comm) and held that in substance the claims were brought under the settlement agreement and therefore fell outside the ambit of the arbitration agreement in the original contract.
• An unusual application to stay court proceedings which had been commenced by the applicant herself was dismissed on the basis that there was no arbitration agreement between the parties to the litigation, an attempt to rely upon the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Ordinance having been rejected (Lam Po Yee v. Yu Shui Mui [2025] HKCFI 4245). Mr Recorder William Wong SC found that the applicant was moreover out of time to apply for a stay because she had already submitted her first statement on the substance of the dispute in a separate application to the court for an interim injunction. As the stay application was "futile and abusive on many bases", costs were ordered against the applicant on an indemnity basis.

Supporting arbitral proceedings

• Service of a notice of arbitration by SMS message was held to be valid, although the risks of such a mode of service were highlighted (CCC v. AAC [2025] HKCFI 2987). The issue arose in the context of a challenge to the enforcement of a Hong Kong Arbitration Society award by the individual award debtor, who contended that an SMS message was not a suitable method of notifying a party of the commencement of arbitral proceedings against it.Deputy High Court Judge Sir William Blair rejected this argument, holding that the award debtor had accepted the giving of notice by SMS by agreeing to arbitrate under the Hong Kong Arbitration Society Online Arbitration Rules (which provided for the transmission and deemed receipt of written communications by electronic means, including SMS), and concluding that there was "little doubt" on the evidence that the award debtor had received the SMS message containing a user name and password to access the notice. The judge nevertheless acknowledged the "force" in the award debtor's submissions as to the potential risks of giving notice by SMS, and noted that it would generally be good practice in an online arbitration of this kind (especially one featuring a non-participating respondent) for the arbitrator (or the claimant at the arbitrator's request) to verify receipt by the respondent.
• Interim relief was granted in support of a Hong Kong-seated arbitration by a mainland PRC court in the dispute giving rise to the Harvest Trade decision (already discussed above in the context of anti-arbitration injunctions). Specifically, the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court granted an asset preservation order in support of a CIETAC Hong Kong arbitration. Although not a decision of the Hong Kong court, the granting of interim relief by the PRC court illustrates one of Hong Kong's unique strengths for PRC-related disputes, namely, the ability of parties to Hong Kong-seated arbitrations administered by qualifying institutions to seek interim measures from mainland PRC courts pursuant to a special arrangement between the two jurisdictions which came into force on 1 October 2019 (reported here). The list of qualifying institutions was expanded earlier this year and now includes nine institutions, including the HKIAC, the ICC Asia Office and the Hong Kong arbitration centers of several leading mainland PRC institutions, including CIETAC Hong Kong (see the full list here). According to statistics published by the HKIAC (reported here), in 2024 a total of 40 applications were made to mainland PRC courts pursuant to the arrangement in HKIAC arbitrations alone, with orders to preserve RMB 6.3 billion (approximately US$865 million) worth of assets (a success rate by value of approximately 72%).
• The CFI granted injunctive relief restraining the registration of certain transfers of shares and convertible bonds in a Hong Kong-listed company in support of a pending arbitration in the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (UK Prolific Petroleum Group v. Xindu [2025] HKCFI 4769). Mr Recorder Jenkin Suen SC rejected an argument by the arbitration respondent (a BVI company) that the court did not have jurisdiction because the applicant had relied upon the statutory regime for "stop orders" and "stop notices" set out in Order 50 of the Rules of the High Court, rather than the usual regime for interim relief in support of arbitral proceedings outside Hong Kong (namely, section 21M of the High Court Ordinance and section 45 of the Arbitration Ordinance). He therefore exercised his discretion to grant injunctive relief on the basis on that there was at least a serious issue to be tried as to the applicant's case that (amongst other things) it was beneficially entitled to the relevant securities.

Enforcing arbitral awards

Security for costs of award challenges

• In Borrower v. Lender [2025] HKCFI 3197, Mimmie Chan J ordered security for costs in the sum of HK$1.5 million (approximately USD 190,000) against a Cayman Islands award debtor in respect of its application to set aside an HKIAC award, consistent with her decision in the previous case of SA & Others v. BH & Another [2024] HKCFI 1357 (reported here) confirming the power of the CFI to make such orders. The judge observed in the present case that "the power of the Court to order security against a party seeking to oppose enforcement of an arbitral award serves the very purpose and is in line with the policy of assisting, recognizing and giving effect to the arbitral process and awards made under the consensual arbitral regime. It can only enhance Hong Kong as an arbitral centre and as a venue with a judiciary which supports arbitration and arbitral awards." She noted that the foreign residence of the award debtor was a relevant but not sufficient factor, because an order for security must be just having regard to all the circumstances of the case (a finding which appears to contrast with that by a different judge in the earlier case of P1 and P2 v. D [2024] HKCFI 3052). Other relevant factors included the absence of assets in Hong Kong, the likely difficulty of enforcing any adverse costs orders against the award debtor taking into account the history of its conduct of the underlying arbitration and uncooperative attitude (including non-participation in the hearing), and the lack of merit in the application to set aside the award.
• InY & S v. GI & GG [2025] HKCFI 3633, Mimmie Chan J dismissed an application to set aside an HKIAC award with indemnity costs due to the failure of the PRC award debtors to pay security for costs of HK$2 million (approximately US$250,000) as directed in a previous decision handed down four months earlier (Y & S v. GI & GG [2025] HKCFI 1317).

Measures in support of enforcement

• The CFI continued a worldwide Mareva injunction and ancillary disclosure order against various third parties to an arbitration in support of an action brought against them by the award creditor for thwarting enforcement of two arbitral awards (Flame Asia Resources v. Full Idea Trading & Ors [2025] HKCFI 4139). In the awards, declarations of force majeure made by the award debtor (a Hong Kong company) under a coal supply contract had been found to be invalid, with a total of US$18.2 million awarded to the award creditor. When the award creditor sought to enforce the awards, it transpired that the award debtor had during the course of the arbitration substantially dissipated its bank cash by transferring US$28.8 million to a Hong Kong company and an Indonesian company without apparent consideration or commercial justification. The award creditor therefore commenced proceedings against the companies which had received the cash and two individuals who had authorised the transfers, claiming unlawful means conspiracy and procuring breach of the arbitration agreement. In granting injunctive relief in support of those proceedings, Queeny Au-Yeung J noted (amongst other things) that: there was a real risk of dissipation because the conduct of the relevant parties showed "a flagrant disregard of arbitration awards and court orders" and "no commercial morality"; without an injunction, the award creditor's claims were likely to be rendered futile; and in a post-arbitration enforcement action, the court would be more inclined to grant the injunction to enable effective enforcement.
• The CFI upheld a charging order over shares in a Hong Kong company made in support of the enforcement in Hong Kong of a CIETAC award (Lead Good Group Ltd v. Creditland Group Ltd and Others [2025] HKCFI 3646). The award debtor had argued that its other creditors would be unduly prejudiced by the charging order, including because it was in liquidation in the British Virgin Islands, and pari passu distribution of assets should therefore be preferred. Anthony Chan J held that because the insolvency had not yet been recognised in Hong Kong and was not (on the facts of the case) intended to have automatic extra-territorial effect without recognition, it did not preclude the making of the charging order. As to undue prejudice, this was not made out by the mere fact that the charging order would give one creditor priority over others. To justify a departure from the general rule of "first past the post", something more amounting to exceptional circumstances was required, such as "sharp conduct" by the award creditor (the threshold for which was stringent). The fact that the award creditor had objected to the insolvency before the BVI court and then taken enforcement action in Hong Kong did not amount to "undue haste in obtaining a preferred position" such as to constitute sharp conduct. In "acting quickly to obtain priority under a charging order", the award creditor was "acting within its rights" and in a way that might be said to be the whole point of the "first past the post" principle. On both issues, the court drew upon and applied the reasoning in the English case of British Arab Commercial Bank plc v. Algosaibi and Bros Co [2011] EWHC 2444 (Comm).

Setting expectations of conduct

• In L v. R [2025] HKCFI 3162, an application for security for costs was made eighteen months after the commencement, and only two months before the hearing, of a challenge to a settlement agreement and termination order in respect of an HKIAC arbitration on the same grounds as an arbitral award (reported previously here), and withdrawn following observations made by Mimmie Chan J at the hearing of the security application. In a decision handed down subsequently, the judge observed that applications for security may be dismissed on the basis of delay alone, in the absence of exceptional circumstances explaining the applicant's inaction. She also noted that unwarranted applications for security would be penalised by costs orders, including orders against legal representatives in appropriate cases.
• In Shenzhen Shenchao Technology Investment Co Ltd. v. Shiji Jingyuan Technology Co Ltd & Gao Jingde [2025] HKCA 551, the Court of Appeal ordered indemnity costs against an award creditor on the basis that the manner in which it had conducted its appeal against a successful challenge to the enforcement of a SCIA award could fairly be described as an abuse of process.
• A Mareva injunction in support of a CIETAC arbitration was discontinued by Deputy High Court Judge Andrew Li on the basis of (i) a lack of "solid evidence" to show a "real risk" of dissipation, (ii) a "fatal" delay of at least three years by the applicant in applying for the Mareva injunction, and (iii) two "egregious" instances of material non-disclosure by the applicant (北京誠義豪泰投資管理有限公司 v. Zhang Yuping (also known as Cheung Yu Ping) [2025] HKCFI 2280), although this decision was subsequently stayed pending the determination of an application by the applicant for leave to appeal (北京誠義豪泰投資管理有限公司 v. Zhang Yuping [2025] HKCFI 3002).

Comment

The decisions provide a representative snapshot of the arbitration-related matters before the Hong Kong courts and underline the breadth and depth of specialist judicial arbitration expertise in Hong Kong (with a single judge, the Honourable Madam Justice Mimmie Chan, deciding nearly one third of the cases, and seven other judges handing down first instance decisions) and the readiness of the courts to take account of international jurisprudence.

They reflect the diversity of the arbitration landscape in Hong Kong, including the jurisdiction's unique strengths for the resolution of PRC-related disputes, the international popularity of the HKIAC (which recorded a record caseload in 2024 (reported here) and is the top choice of institution for arbitration users in Asia-Pacific and joint second globally (reported here)), and the increasing activity in Hong Kong of leading mainland PRC institutions (on whose most recent statistics we reported here).

While the outcomes were overwhelmingly in favour of parties seeking to rely upon arbitration agreements or enforce arbitral awards, those decisions which went the other way underline the determination of the Hong Kong courts to protect the integrity of the arbitral framework by upholding rigorous standards of judicial reasoning and setting clear expectations as to party conduct. Some of the decisions also serve as a useful reminder that parties seeking to utilise the courts' time to enforce arbitration agreements and awards should act without undue delay and come to the court with "clean hands".

Users of arbitration in Hong Kong can therefore continue to be confident of strong judicial support for arbitration as well as a modern legislative framework in the form of the Hong Kong Arbitration Ordinance (which it was recently announced would be reviewed to ensure it remains at the cutting edge of international best practice, as reported here).

Parties to arbitration-related court proceedings in Hong Kong can also now take advantage of electronic filings and payments, following the extension of the Hong Kong Judiciary's integrated Court Case Management System (iCMS) to cases in the Construction and Arbitration List from 29 August 2025 (see here for the relevant announcement and here for more details on iCMS).

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.