Tim Owen QC secures acquittal in long running Hong Kong money laundering case

After a 4 month trial earlier this year before the Hong Kong District Court, Mainland Chinese business woman, Madam Ye Fang, was acquitted by Judge Josiah Lam on all 17 charges of money laundering in a 124 page Judgment handed down on 1st September 2017 (please see here for judgment). Tim Owen QC has acted for Madam Ye since September 2014 and successfully secured the quashing of her conviction before the Hong Kong Court of Appeal in 2016, with the CA ordering a re-trial. Tim was then granted exceptional admission by the High Court to appear at the re-trial.  Judge Lam’s Reasons for Verdict are an important illustration of the new approach to the “reasonable grounds to believe” limb of s.25 of the Organised and Serious Crimes Ordinance (OSCO) in the wake of the Court of Final Appeal’s recent rulings in Carson Yeung v. HKSAR and Pang Hung Fai v. HKSAR.