Litigation & Dispute Resolution

In G v N [2024] HKCFI 721 (judgment date: 11 March 2024), a Hong Kong court dismissed an application to set aside the enforcement of an interim order which an arbitrator had made requiring a party to take steps to dismiss the proceedings commenced by it against the other party and the other party’s subsidiaries. In doing so, the court considered and clarified the distinction between interim measures and awards for the purpose of enforcement and setting-aside proceedings, and the separate regimes that apply to them.

In P v D [2024] HKCFI 1123 (judgment date: 30 April 2024), the Hong Kong Court of First Instance dismissed an application, pursuant to section 26 of the Arbitration Ordinance, by the challenging party (“P”) to remove two arbitrators (“Impugned Arbitrators”) in an HKIAC administered arbitration governed by the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, pursuant to section 26 of the Arbitration Ordinance (Cap. 609).

In May 2024, the Hong Kong Government introduced the Construction Industry Security of Payment Bill (Bill) to the Legislative Council for first reading. If the Bill is passed into law, the Bill will introduce a statutory security of payment regime for both public sector and private sector construction contracts in Hong Kong. This is the second article in a series of two articles. In the earlier article, we compared the clauses in the Bill against the public works contracts pilot programme security of payment provisions (Pilot Provisions) promulgated by the Development Bureau (DevB) in its Technical Circular (Works) No.6/2021 (Circular) for the contractual regime, and considered the key development, changes and differences. In this article, we will take a deeper look at the changes made in the Bill concerning the treatment of variation claims and time-related disputes in the payment process and the adjudication process.

In G v N [2023] HKCFI 3366 (judgment date: 29 December 2023), a Hong Kong court considered the question of whether and to what extent it is open for the court to review an arbitrator’s ruling on matters of public policy. The court stayed the enforcement of the award and remitted the award to the arbitrator. Later, in [2024] HKCFI 655 (judgment date: 9 February 2024), the same judge considered the case to have raised an “important and novel” question as to what is the proper scope of judicial intervention in arbitral awards on grounds of public policy, and granted leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal.

In May 2024, the Hong Kong Government introduced the Construction Industry Security of Payment Bill (Bill) to the Legislative Council for first reading. If the Bill is passed into law, the Bill will introduce a statutory security of payment regime for both public sector and private sector construction contracts in Hong Kong. Currently, a contractual security of payment regime is in place for public sector construction contracts only. In this article, we will compare the clauses in the Bill against the public works contracts pilot programme security of payment provisions (Pilot Provisions) promulgated by the Development Bureau (DevB) for the contractual regime, and consider the key development, changes and differences. This is the first article in a series of two articles. In the next article, we will take a deeper look at the change of two features in the payment process and the adjudication process relating to variation claims and time-related disputes.