The Court of Final Appeal (TUI) has rejected Moon Ocean Ltd’s request to annul a 2012 administrative order by Chief Executive Chui Sai On which invalidated the company’s provisional leaseholds of five plots of land where the aborted La Scala residential project is located, according to a statement issued by the court yesterday.
Chui’s predecessor Edmund Ho Hau Wah issued an administrative order to transfer the provisional land concessions of the five plots from several companies to Moon Ocean in 2006. Chui issued an administrative order in 2012 to invalidate the transfer.
The company was headed by Hong Kong real estate tycoon Joseph Lau Luen Hung. Lau and his business partner Steven Lo Kit Sing were both sentenced in absentia by a local court to five years and three months each for bribing the city’s then secretary for public works and transport Ao Man Long to facilitate their bids for the five plots. Lau and Lo have so far escaped imprisonment because they have not set foot in Macau since the verdicts. Both have denied the graft allegations.
This photo taken yesterday shows the area where the graft-tainted La Scala project was supposed to be built. Photo: Ian Sio Tou
Please read the full article in our print edition.
