In Jacky Zong & Ors v Kelly Fuli Zong & Anor [2026] HKCA 1292, the Court of Appeal dismissed the defendants’ renewed application for leave to appeal against a preservation order granted under s. 21M of the High Court Ordinance (Cap. 4) over HSBC account assets valued at approximately US$1.8 billion.
The defendants argued that the preservation order sought was, in substance, a Mareva injunction, which would require the plaintiffs to demonstrate a good arguable case and a real risk of dissipation.
The Court of Appeal rejected this characterisation. It was held that s. 21M is not confined to Mareva relief and may serve other purposes, including making a preservation order to preserve assets that may be affected by an order for specific performance or transfer eventually made by the foreign court.
Since the plaintiffs were seeking a preservation order to preserve assets which may be affected by an order for specific performance sought in the Hangzhou Proceedings, the appropriate threshold was whether there was a serious issue to be tried, and not the higher Mareva standard. The Court noted that this was not reasonably arguable on appeal.
This decision offers clarification for practitioners: when seeking s. 21M preservation relief in support of foreign proceedings involving proprietary or specific performance claims, applicants are not necessarily required to satisfy the more demanding Mareva threshold. The characterisation of the order depends on the nature of the underlying claim and the relief sought.
The Plaintiffs are represented by William Wong SC, Sharon Yuen and Charlie Liu, instructed by Karas So LLP.
The full judgment is available at: https://legalref.judiciary.hk/lrs/common/ju/ju_frame.jsp?DIS=182998&currpage=T
