by Keith Bradsher The New York Times, August 24, 2006– The beating was as brutal as it was professional.
Three men carrying wooden batons and wearing baseball caps that shadowed their faces walked silently on Sunday afternoon into a McDonald’s restaurant in the heart of Hong Kong’s central business district. The men approached one of the city’s best-known lawyers and lawmakers, Albert Ho, and in front of as many as 150 witnesses, struck him so many times and so hard that one of the batons broke.
Ho was released from hospital Thursday, although he is expected to undergo additional facial surgery next week. But with Ho receiving a threatening, anonymous letter with a razor blade inside on Thursday evening, the damage to Hong Kong’s reputation may last longer.
Ho attributed the attack to his legal work, including litigation in the debt collection industry and a lawsuit blocking a multibillion-dollar initial public offering by a Macao gambling company advised by Deutsche Bank.
One of the biggest worries in the years leading up to the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 to China from Britain was that the rule of law would gradually be undermined here.
It is Hong Kong’s renown as a safe, stable place where contracts can be enforced and business disputes settled equitably in court that has turned this port into the biggest transportation hub in Asia and the financial capital of China. The city markets itself as standing at the center of Asia while also trying to stand above the corruption and poor corporate governance that is endemic across the region.
The lingering question since the handover has been whether Chinese gangs, known as triads and alleged to have links with the Communist Party, would start to exert more influence.
There have been hints of triad links in the attack on Ho, which was the most public attack against a high-profile litigator since the handover. “I see it as an open challenge to the rule of law,” said Ronny Tong, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association who is now a Civic Party lawmaker.
The brazenness of the attack revived memories of the murder in late 2002 of Harry Lam, a real estate developer and stock market speculator. Lam was murdered while having breakfast at his favorite teahouse. A man who was at a table nearby walked over and shot Lam in the head, bent down to pick up and pocket the shell casing, put money on his table to pay for the breakfast and coolly walked past screaming bystanders and out of the teahouse.
To be sure, Hong Kong has long had a seamy side that contrasts with its towering skyscrapers topped with the names of global brands like Citigroup, HSBC and Bank of America. Periodic kidnappings for ransom of wealthy entrepreneurs and their children were a problem even under British rule, and some executives still show up at the barbershop or at dinner parties with up to a half-dozen bodyguards.
“Compared to the rest of Asia, Hong Kong remains a world-class and law- abiding city,” said Stephen Vickers, a top police intelligence official during British rule who is now the president and chief executive of International Risk, a security consulting firm. “Having said that, we have long-entrenched triad societies, many of which have tentacles to Macao.”
The attack on Ho is the most serious incident since 2003 involving a prominent lawyer. That year, Mok Chiu Kuen, Ho’s predecessor in litigation against Stanley Ho, a Macao gambling tycoon, was also beaten up in an incident that the police labeled as a possible robbery attempt. No arrests were made in that case, and Mok subsequently abandoned the litigation.
With advice from Deutsche Bank, Stanley Ho – who is not related to Albert Ho – has been trying to organize an initial public offering of his main company, Sociedade de Jogos de Macao, to raise between $2 billion and $4 billion. He has been stymied by lawsuits filed by his sister, Winnie Ho, who was advised by Mok and now by Albert Ho.
Stanley Ho told local reporters Wednesday night that it was “absolutely impossible” that his subordinates had anything to do with the attack on Albert Ho. Stanley Ho this week called repeatedly for the attackers to be brought to justice.
Deutsche Bank declined to comment.
Albert Ho has said several times since the beating that he believed the attack was related to his legal work, but he has never mentioned Stanley Ho and has also noted that his work includes the debt collection industry.
Hong Kong triads, often working closely with Macao triads, are actively involved in the debt collection industry.
Triad-related violence may also be returning to Macao, 60 kilometers, or 40 miles, across the mouth of the Pearl River from Hong Kong. Chao Yeuk-hong, director of the Golden Palace VIP rooms at a Macao casino owned by Stanley Ho, was found last Friday in a car just across the border in mainland China; her throat had been slit and her husband, lying next to her, had died of multiple stab wounds.
The opening of a Sands Casino in Macao in 2004 has cut into Stanley Ho’s dominance of that city’s gambling market. He warned this month that up to a third of the private operators who control VIP rooms at his casinos were facing financial difficulties because of the competition.
The attack on Albert Ho is the latest and most dramatic in a series of developments that have the potential to harm Hong Kong’s standing as a financial hub in Asia and as the city where mainland Chinese companies go to do deals and raise money.
“Any beating of a public figure, particularly a lawmaker, undermines Hong Kong’s rule of law and freedom of speech,” said David Webb, a corporate advocate and a director of the Hong Kong stock exchange. “If people aren’t able to comment freely on matters of public interest, including corporate governance, then there will be less transparency, and that hurts free markets.”
Hong Kong may have a rival in Shanghai, which is seeking to build itself as a venue for mainland companies seeking to issue stock. Beijing recently began allowing initial public offerings in Shanghai after a long moratorium to shore up share prices, although it remains unclear whether investors have enough confidence in the stock market there. Regulators have been struggling to curb a range of share manipulation schemes.
An offering of Air China shares in Shanghai last week was a debacle in which the airline had to buy up large blocks of shares to prevent the price from slumping on weak demand.
But Hong Kong has had its own difficulties this summer, of which the attack on Ho is only the most visible. Ocean Grand Holdings, an aluminum and palladium processing company listed on the Hong Kong stock market that had long been a target of corporate governance advocates, has had a provisional liquidator appointed and ceased trading. The company revealed last month that it could not locate the financial controller of a large mainland China subsidiary and that $101 million had disappeared from its bank accounts.
Hong Kong has prospered in the past three years as the place where mainland companies do investment banking deals and where the wealthy mainland Chinese shop and invest their money beyond the reach of mainland tax collectors and regulators. But with that prosperity has come such a steep rise in rental rates – some downtown office rents have quintupled since the SARS epidemic in 2003 – that the city is also becoming less competitive for nonfinancial industries.
The anonymous letter to Ho on Thursday evening did not make the city sound like an inviting place to do business. Laced with profanity, the letter read, “You’re lucky you didn’t die this time, next time you won’t be so lucky – watch your step.”
Standing in front of the thick steel front door of his apartment building late Thursday night, Ho remained defiant: “I don’t think I should succumb to pressure or fear just because I received such a letter.”
Ng Tze-wei in Hong Kong contributed to this article.
Related:
- Prominent Hong Kong Democrat Attacked After Protest , the Epoch Times Hong Kong Staff, Aug 21, 2006
Democratic Party Vice-chairman and Legislator Albert Ho Chun-yan was attacked by three men armed with baseball bats after he attended a protest on the afternoon of Sunday, August 20. Hong Kong police investigators are working on the case, and Democratic Party chairman Lee Wing-tat has strongly condemned this violent act. Several lawmakers and party members visited Ho at the hospital and urged the police to quickly apprehend Ho’s attackers.The attack took place in a McDonald’s restaurant on Queen’s Road at around 5 p.m. after the Democratic Party’s march protesting the possible imposition of a goods and services tax. Vice Chairman Ho was with fellow Democratic Party member Lam Chi-kin when three men ran at him with baseball bats.