One of Hong Kong’s richest property tycoons with assets in London will face prosecution over bribery and money laundering in a land deal in Macau.
Joseph Lau, chief executive of Chinese Estates Holdings, has had a request that the case be thrown out owing to lack of evidence rejected.
Last year his company purchased the Goldman Sachs’ River Court building in Fleet Street, EC4, for a rumoured £280m.
Chinese Estates said that a court in Macau had formally accepted an accusation by the public prosecutor that Lau had a case to answer on the charges.
The prosecutor in Macau alleged in court that Lau and Steven Lo, chairman of the South China Football Club, had offered a HK $20m (£1.6m) bribe to a former Macau government official, and claimed they did so to assure the purchase of five plots of land next to the Macau International Airport and near the Cotai Strip.
Lau – who reached position 13 in the Sunday Times Rich List last month and saw his fortune climb by £203m to £4.1bn – has denied any wrongdoing.
No date has been set yet for the trial.
joanna.bourke@estatesgazette.com
