Tycoon Nina Wang’s lover loses claim to her fortune
Judge declares signature on 2006 will is forged; upholds previous will
03 February 2010
HONG KONG: A fengshui adviser who had an affair with Asia’s richest woman tycoon before she died lost his bid for her multibillion-dollar estate yesterday when a Hong Kong court deemed a contested will a forgery.
The purported signature of Ms Nina Wang on the will was a ‘highly skilled simulation’, High Court Judge Johnson Lam said, rejecting a 2006 document produced by Mr. Tony Chan, 50, to claim the businesswoman’s estate.
‘I do not find the defendant to be a credible witness. I find he is prepared to say anything to advance his claim,’ Mr. Lam wrote in his 328-page verdict.
He upheld a 2002 will that gave the money, estimated to be worth between US$6.4 billion (S$9 billion) and US$13 billion, to Chinachem Charitable Foundation, run by Ms Wang’s siblings.
‘There is justice in this world,’ Ms Wang’s younger brother, Mr. Kung Yan Sum, told reporters.
The ruling was the climax of the ‘Battle of the Wills’ case, which has fascinated Hong Kong with its stories of fengshui rituals and illicit love affairs of a colourful billionaire nicknamed ‘Little Sweetie’ for her girlish outfits and hairdo.
Despite her unlikely fashion sense, Shanghai-born Ms Wang was a shrewd businesswoman who headed Chinachem Group, the property developer she had built with her late husband Teddy. She was named by Forbes magazine in 2007 as Asia’s richest woman with assets worth US$4.2 billion.
Her death from cancer in April 2007, when she was 69, triggered the bitter feud between Mr. Chan and the charity she had set up.
The court battle began in May last year. Witnesses called included Chinachem staff, siblings and friends of Ms Wang and Mr. Chan, fengshui students, doctors, psychiatrists and handwriting experts.
The court heard that Mr. Chan worked odd jobs including as a bartender, waiter, machinery salesman and market researcher before embarking on a career advising clients on how to channel fengshui, an ancient Chinese system that claims to harness natural and spiritual energies.
He befriended Ms Wang in 1992 when she tapped his expertise to help find her husband, who was kidnapped in 1990.
Mr. Chan testified that an affair developed between him and Ms Wang, even though his wife was at that time pregnant with their eldest son. Ms Wang and him were so intimate, he said, that she called him ‘hubby pig’ and left him a pair of her pigtails.
Digging holes at Chinachem sites and burning real money were among the happy memories he and Ms Wang enjoyed as a ‘married couple’, he added.
The charity’s lawyers said Mr. Chan was a charlatan who duped Ms Wang, arguing that she did not have the mental capacity to execute the 2006 will because of her illness.
As part of a campaign to discredit Mr. Chan, Chinachem put on an 80-minute puppet show called ‘One Life One Love’ detailing the romantic bond between Ms Wang and her husband, whom she married in 1955 when she was only 18.
Mr. Wang was declared legally dead in 1999, although his body was never found.
Ms Wang won a legal battle with her father-in-law for control of her late husband’s estate just two years before her own death.
While Judge Lam accepted that Ms Wang and Mr. Chan - more than 20 years her junior - had an intimate relationship, ‘she wanted it buried together with her after her death’, he wrote.
He described Ms Wang as a ‘kind-hearted’ and ‘patriotic’ philanthropist who ‘placed a higher regard on her charitable objectives than the defendant’.
She had hoped to set up the Chinese equivalent of a Nobel Peace Prize and had mentioned wishes to broker talks between Beijing and exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, the court had heard.
As late as Jan 4, 2007 - three months before her death, she wrote a letter to Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu reiterating her intention to contribute to the welfare of China.
It was revealed during the trial that Ms Wang, who never had children, took high-dosage oestrogen in a failed bid to have a child well into her 50s. She also looked into human cloning experiments in Italy.
It was unclear whether she intended her child’s father to be Mr. Chan.
Mr. Chan said yesterday he was ‘extremely disappointed’ with the verdict and would appeal. He insisted that the contested will ‘was given to him by Nina and it is thus inconceivable that it is a forgery’.
A final decision on the case may ultimately be made in the Court of Final Appeal, which could take 12 to 18 months.
If the appeals court agrees the will was a forgery, Mr. Chan could face criminal fraud charges, which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
Mr. Kung said his family would ‘have a think’ about whether to demand that the fengshui practitioner return Ms Wang’s signature pigtails.
But the brother added: ‘The judge said he was not credible. Who knows if the pigtails he gives us are genuine?’
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Tycoon Nina Wang’s lover loses claim to her fortune
Judge declares signature on 2006 will is forged; upholds previous will
03 February 2010
HONG KONG: A fengshui adviser who had an affair with Asia’s richest woman tycoon before she died lost his bid for her multibillion-dollar estate yesterday when a Hong Kong court deemed a contested will a forgery.
The purported signature of Ms Nina Wang on the will was a ‘highly skilled simulation’, High Court Judge Johnson Lam said, rejecting a 2006 document produced by Mr. Tony Chan, 50, to claim the businesswoman’s estate.
‘I do not find the defendant to be a credible witness. I find he is prepared to say anything to advance his claim,’ Mr. Lam wrote in his 328-page verdict.
He upheld a 2002 will that gave the money, estimated to be worth between US$6.4 billion (S$9 billion) and US$13 billion, to Chinachem Charitable Foundation, run by Ms Wang’s siblings.
‘There is justice in this world,’ Ms Wang’s younger brother, Mr. Kung Yan Sum, told reporters.
The ruling was the climax of the ‘Battle of the Wills’ case, which has fascinated Hong Kong with its stories of fengshui rituals and illicit love affairs of a colourful billionaire nicknamed ‘Little Sweetie’ for her girlish outfits and hairdo.
Despite her unlikely fashion sense, Shanghai-born Ms Wang was a shrewd businesswoman who headed Chinachem Group, the property developer she had built with her late husband Teddy. She was named by Forbes magazine in 2007 as Asia’s richest woman with assets worth US$4.2 billion.
Her death from cancer in April 2007, when she was 69, triggered the bitter feud between Mr. Chan and the charity she had set up.
The court battle began in May last year. Witnesses called included Chinachem staff, siblings and friends of Ms Wang and Mr. Chan, fengshui students, doctors, psychiatrists and handwriting experts.
The court heard that Mr. Chan worked odd jobs including as a bartender, waiter, machinery salesman and market researcher before embarking on a career advising clients on how to channel fengshui, an ancient Chinese system that claims to harness natural and spiritual energies.
He befriended Ms Wang in 1992 when she tapped his expertise to help find her husband, who was kidnapped in 1990.
Mr. Chan testified that an affair developed between him and Ms Wang, even though his wife was at that time pregnant with their eldest son. Ms Wang and him were so intimate, he said, that she called him ‘hubby pig’ and left him a pair of her pigtails.
Digging holes at Chinachem sites and burning real money were among the happy memories he and Ms Wang enjoyed as a ‘married couple’, he added.
The charity’s lawyers said Mr. Chan was a charlatan who duped Ms Wang, arguing that she did not have the mental capacity to execute the 2006 will because of her illness.
As part of a campaign to discredit Mr. Chan, Chinachem put on an 80-minute puppet show called ‘One Life One Love’ detailing the romantic bond between Ms Wang and her husband, whom she married in 1955 when she was only 18.
Mr. Wang was declared legally dead in 1999, although his body was never found.
Ms Wang won a legal battle with her father-in-law for control of her late husband’s estate just two years before her own death.
While Judge Lam accepted that Ms Wang and Mr. Chan - more than 20 years her junior - had an intimate relationship, ‘she wanted it buried together with her after her death’, he wrote.
He described Ms Wang as a ‘kind-hearted’ and ‘patriotic’ philanthropist who ‘placed a higher regard on her charitable objectives than the defendant’.
She had hoped to set up the Chinese equivalent of a Nobel Peace Prize and had mentioned wishes to broker talks between Beijing and exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, the court had heard.
As late as Jan 4, 2007 - three months before her death, she wrote a letter to Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu reiterating her intention to contribute to the welfare of China.
It was revealed during the trial that Ms Wang, who never had children, took high-dosage oestrogen in a failed bid to have a child well into her 50s. She also looked into human cloning experiments in Italy.
It was unclear whether she intended her child’s father to be Mr. Chan.
Mr. Chan said yesterday he was ‘extremely disappointed’ with the verdict and would appeal. He insisted that the contested will ‘was given to him by Nina and it is thus inconceivable that it is a forgery’.
A final decision on the case may ultimately be made in the Court of Final Appeal, which could take 12 to 18 months.
If the appeals court agrees the will was a forgery, Mr. Chan could face criminal fraud charges, which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
Mr. Kung said his family would ‘have a think’ about whether to demand that the fengshui practitioner return Ms Wang’s signature pigtails.
But the brother added: ‘The judge said he was not credible. Who knows if the pigtails he gives us are genuine?’
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