The following cases were recently reported by the Hon Mr Justice Bokhary. See below for His Lordship’s remarks and observations by way of Editor’s Notes.

HKSAR v Husnain Safdar [2021] 3 HKLRD 509

“The following appears from paras.25 and 26 of this judgment. At one stage, the Court of Appeal had raised with counsel the constitutional issue of a judge’s power to refuse to accept a plea agreement reached between the Department of Justice, as the prosecuting arm of the HKSAR, and a defendant. But ultimately the Court of Appeal found that the issue did not actually arise. This was because it became apparent that the Judge had not actually rejected the plea agreement in the present case. He had only, quite properly, queried the underlying assumptions as to the state of the evidence on which the Director of Public Prosecution’s acceptance of the manslaughter plea offered by the defendant was based. So that constitutional issue remains to be decided if and when it arises on some future occasion.”

Yip Kam Chun v Wellgain International Industrial Ltd [2021] 3 HKLRD 574

“This decision identifies and illustrates the status and effect of settlement offers lying outside the sanctioned payments and sanctioned offers regime.”

Ramanjit Singh v Government of Republic of India [2021] 3 HKLRD 600

“As stated with the succinctness for which a headnote calls, the decision in this case turned on the foregoing holdings. But for the wider precedential effect of this judgment, the entirety of the observations and reasoning of the Court of Appeal is of course to be consulted.”

Re LH & LW (Expenses for Intended Surrogacy) [2021] 3 HKLRD 707

“The result of this application turned on the foregoing holding, but the judgment contains — and may be consulted for — much else besides on parental orders and surrogacy. Also, attention is drawn to the final paragraph of the judgment. The praiseworthy conduct of the applicants’ legal advisers commended by the Judge in that paragraph sets a worthy example.”

Securities and Futures Commission v Isidor Subotic [2021] 3 HKLRD 777

“As can be seen, the transnational nature of market misconduct and market offences nowadays was taken into account when arriving at the view that claims under s.213 of the Securities and Futures Ordinance (Cap.571) are to be regarded as being founded on tort for the purpose of service out of the jurisdiction.”

Yu Chun Kit v Wong Wing Yau (formerly trading as Viewbond Cargo Service Co) [2021] 3 HKLRD 938

“This judgment involves the reasoned application to circumstances apparently uncovered by authority of principles derived from cases on different but comparable circumstances.”