CFI enters judgment exceeding HK$234 million against a prominent businessman who denied signing personal guarantee deeds

In China Energy Development Holdings Limited v Yeung Ka Sing, Carson [2026] HKCFI 1693, the Court ruled that the Plaintiff, represented by Mr Jacky Lam, could recover amounts owed to it by personal guarantee in excess of HK$234 million. The issue was whether the Defendant, a prominent businessman, had in fact signed two personal guarantee deeds whose effect was to transfer the debt of a media company of which he was a substantial shareholder to him personally.

Between 2008 and 2010, the Plaintiff loaned Sing Pao Media Enterprises Limited ("Sing Pao") a principal sum of HK$37.1 million under 7 loan agreements with monthly interest and default interest. In 2015, Sing Pao was wound up.  None of the principal was ever repaid.

The Plaintiff claimed that the Defendant, a substantial shareholder in Sing Pao through his wholly-owned BVI vehicle, had personally guaranteed the entirety of the debt by signing two personal guarantee deeds in 2010 and 2011.  By the time of judgment, in light of the accruing interest, he owed the Plaintiff a sum in excess of HK$234 million. In denying that he signed the guarantees, he claimed that they were forgeries; the requisite deed formalities were not met; and there was no commercial reason for him to guarantee the loans.

Although the Plaintiff did not retain contemporaneous records of how the guarantees were prepared or executed; and neither party’s handwriting experts were able to conclusively demonstrate whether the signatures on the guarantees were the Defendant’s, Cheng J ruled for the Plaintiff by relying on the totality of the circumstantial evidence which pointed to the Defendant having signed the guarantees. This evidence included inter alia the Defendant’s failure to alert the police to the alleged forgeries; his initial hesitancy to adduce expert handwriting evidence; the fact that the guarantees bore certain personal information that may not have been widely known; and that the original guarantees were stored in the Plaintiff’s secure database. 

Under cross-examination, it was also revealed that he did have good reason to provide the guarantees, such as his involvement in the financial support, management and operations of Sing Pao.  On the one hand he claimed to have been ignorant of such matters; on the other, he expressed it was his motivation, and dream, to own an interest in a Sing Pao for nostalgic reasons.    

Upon the determination that the Defendant did sign the guarantees, his secondary defences also fell away.   

The Defendant has lodged an appeal.

Plowman Chambers’ Jacky Lam acted for the Plaintiff, instructed by Mr Jeff Dai of Lawrence Chan & Co.

The full judgment can be viewed here.

See Jacky’s profile here.