A Hong Kong court has formally frozen an HSBC account at the heart of a high-stakes lawsuit that pits three claimants of a multibillion-dollar inheritance against the CEO of Hangzhou Wahaha Group, a beverage empire dubbed “China’s Coca-Cola”.
The order will remain in force until another parallel lawsuit filed in a Hangzhou court is finished, or until a further order is passed by the Hong Kong court, according to a ruling by Deputy High Court Judge Gary CC Lam on Friday.
The three plaintiffs – extramarital children of Zong Qinghou, the late founder of the group and once the richest individual in mainland China – sued their half–sister Kelly Zong Fuli, now the chairwoman and CEO of the group, in December, demanding US$1.8 billion in an HSBC account. They also said Kelly Zong, who was publicly known as her father’s only child until the lawsuit surfaced, had withdrawn more than US$6 million from the account.
The High Court ruled that the account would remain frozen until further orders, noting there were “serious issues to be tried” in relation to the plaintiffs’ claim regarding the breach of a family agreement, in which Kelly Zong had agreed to set up three offshore trusts for the three half-siblings totalling US$2.1 billion after the death of their father in February last year.
Wahaha said on July 14 that the lawsuits filed in Hangzhou and Hong Kong were unrelated to the company’s operations.
The US$1.8 billion in the HSBC account will be the main source of the trusts.
