Moon Ocean Ltd., the developer of luxury residence La Scala, has failed in its final attempt to overturn the government’s decision to take back the five land plots on which its home project was to be built. Yesterday, the city’s Court of Final Appeal turned down the company’s appeal against the decision of the Court of Second Instance last June that the plots of land should return to government possession. According to the verdict released by the top court, the company, controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau Luen Hung, argued that Chief Executive Fernando Chui Sai On had exceeded his power by announcing the invalidity of the land concession for the five plots in 2012, claiming this should be in the exclusive domain of the local courts. But the judges of the case – Song Man Lei, Justice Sam Hou Fai and Viriato Manuel de Lima – did not agree with the company’s position. ‘The transfer of the land concession of the five land plots involved in the case was made on the premise that the former Secretary for Transport and Public Works [Ao Man Long] had accepted the bribes. This unavoidably led the procedure of the transfer and the final approval of the transfer [to be] defective then ineffective,’ presiding judge Song Man Lei wrote in the verdict. In 2006, Moon Ocean was approved by the SAR Government to acquire the five plots opposite Macau International Airport for MOP1.37 billion (US$162 million). These plots were previously granted to five companies primarily owned by the then-Portuguese government, Macau International Airport Company Ltd. (CAM) and Sociedade de Turism Diversões de Macau, S.A. In 2012, the MSAR Government dispatched the invalidity of Moon Ocean’s acquisition of the five plots in 2012 as they are linked to the corruption case of ex-Secretary Ao Man Long. Illegal from the start The Hong Kong-based company also claimed that the procedure of transferring the land concession of the plots was fully and objectively legal while the government’s dispatch of voiding the land concession had delayed the public interest. But the top court held the opposite to be the case, finding that the whole procedure had broken the city’s laws from the beginning. ‘The procedure of selecting a grantee [for the transfer of the land concession] violated the related regulations and the legality standards from the beginning due to the bribery-taking of former Secretary for Transport and Public Works Ao Man Long,’ the verdict reads. ‘The concession is ineffective not solely due to the crimes committed by Ao Man Long but also the crimes committed by the defendants [themselves]. Lau Luen Hung and Lo Kit Sing paid HK$20 million (US$2.5 million) to bribe Ao Man Long to get the land concession,’ the court wrote. In addition to the five plots, Moon Ocean was awarded another eight land parcels in 2011 for the La Scala project – the land grants of which were declared void in 2013 for the same reason whilst the company had filed an appeal against the decision as well. A dispatch signed by the incumbent Secretary for Transport and Public Works Raimundo do Rosario this March indicated that the city’s courts had not yet made a definite ruling on the appeal. The two Hong Kong businessmen have been found guilty of corruption and money laundering by local courts for bribing the former Secretary in 2005 in exchange for successfully bidding for the five land parcels. Although they were sentenced to five years and three months in jail, neither of the two men is currently behind bars as there is no extradition agreement between the two Special Administrative Regions.
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