Haldanes

Haldanes is pleased to announce a significant transition in its leadership. Effective 1 August 2026, Nathan is the firm’s sole Managing Partner, taking over the reins from Andrew Powner.Honouring 28 Years of Dedicated LeadershipAndrew has served as Managing Partner for 28 exceptional years, guiding the firm from 1998 to July 2026. Andrew has been practising as a criminal defence lawyer in Hong Kong with Haldanes for over 30 years. Throughout his distinguished career, he has defended numerous large-scale white-collar commercial crime cases brought by the ICAC and the CCB, and has represented clients investigated by the SFC, SEHK, HKMA, and other law enforcement bodies. Recognised as a Leading Criminal Lawyer by Doyle’s Guide and named in China Business Law Journal’s “A-List”, Andrew’s leadership has been foundational to the firm’s growth and reputation.Welcoming Nathan as Managing PartnerStepping into the Managing Partner role, Nathan brings a wealth of multi-disciplinary expertise to the firm’s leadership. Nathan is a Solicitor Advocate, a China-Appointed Attesting Officer, and a qualified accountant. He specialises in civil litigation, possessing deeply rooted expertise in commercial and company disputes, contentious probate, land-related litigation, and finance-related regulatory matters. As an active member of several Hong Kong Law Society committees, Nathan was also recently recognised as a Recommended Lawyer in Commercial Litigation & Dispute Resolution of Doyle’s Guide 2026 rankings and a winner at the Mondaq Autumn 2025 Thought Leadership Awards for Finance and Banking.A New Chapter for HaldanesThe Partnership and the entire team at Haldanes would like to express their deepest gratitude to Andrew for his invaluable contributions and visionary leadership over the past three decades. We look forward to embarking on this exciting new page as Nathan takes over the baton to guide the firm into its next chapter of success.For media enquiries, please contact our marketing team at [email protected].

The way we approach our final healthcare choices in Hong Kong is undergoing a transformation. For years, the right to decide whether to accept or refuse life-prolonging treatments in our final days rested on uncodified legal principles. The introduction of the Advance Decision on Life-sustaining Treatment Ordinance (Chapter 651 of the Laws of Hong Kong) establishes a clear, protective framework that honours a person’s individual choices while respecting the value of human life. Estate planning extends beyond safeguarding your wealth. It also encompasses protecting your personal dignity, your autonomy, and your family’s peace of mind when it matters most.What is an Advance Medical Directive? Core Principles of Chapter 651At the heart of this new law is the codification of the Advance Medical Directive. This instrument allows any mentally capable adult to specify which life-sustaining interventions, such as ventilators or artificial tube feeding, they would want to refuse if they ever face a terminal medical condition, a persistent vegetative state, an irreversible coma, or an end-stage, irreversible, life-limiting condition. The core philosophy behind this legislation is “cautious making and easy revoking”. This means that while a person under specific circumstances can cancel their directive at any time through a simple verbal statement or by destroying the paper, the process of creating one requires deliberate steps to ensure no one is pressured.Requirements & Witnessing ProtocolsTo protect individuals from making hasty choices or facing family conflict, Hong Kong has adopted a structured approach to validating these directives. Every directive must be put in writing and signed before two adult witnesses. Crucially, one of these witnesses must be a registered doctor who is required to explain the nature and effect of the instructions. Furthermore, to eliminate any potential conflict of interest, neither witness can be someone who stands to inherit money, property, or life insurance pay-outs from the person’s passing. This sets Hong Kong apart from places like the United Kingdom or Germany, where individuals can create binding medical refusals on a simple piece of paper without any mandatory medical consultation or strict witness screening.Legal Framework & Practice Direction 40To manage highly sensitive disputes, the Hong Kong Judiciary has established Practice Direction 40 to provide guidance on the legal avenue. If a dispute arises over whether a directive is valid or if it applies to a patient’s current state, an application can be brought to the High Court. The rules mandate that the patient’s treating hospital and the patient themselves should be involved in the process, and the government’s Official Solicitor is notified to consider acting as an independent guardian.Emergency Protocols and Balancing Medical and Legal PrecisionSince critical medical choices cannot pause for court calendars, the system includes an emergency protocol for acute clinical crises that allows legal advisors to swiftly access an accelerated pathway whenever an urgent impasse arises. Ultimately, this legal architecture ensures that while your right to a dignified natural death is protected, there is always a robust judicial safety net ready to step in. Navigating these deeply personal decisions requires a delicate balance of medical clarity and legal precision.Our relevant practiceHaldanes’ Civil Litigation & Dispute Resolution team excels in contentious probate matters, including the dispute over inheritance. We are recently recognised in the Benchmark Litigation Asia-Pacific Rankings 2026, and officially listed on the joint panel between the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) here for the category of “Commercial Litigation & Cross-border Dispute Resolution”.Further readingHaldanes delivers bespoke Succession Law seminar for HKEX staffHaldanes joins HR Roundtable Workgroup Meeting at the Hong Kong Retirement Schemes AssociationHaldanes maintains strong commitment to wills-related community initiatives

Hong Kong has launched a two-month consultation period on introducing a statutory cooling-off period for and imposing a contract duration limitation on pre-paid consumer contracts in the beauty and fitness industries. This initiative targets longstanding issues of unfair trade practices (“UTP”) to protect the rights and interests of consumers by amending the Trade Descriptions Ordinance (“TDO”), the primary consumer protection legislation in Hong Kong.Background & ProposalAccording to statistics released by the Customs & Excise Department (C&ED), nearly 90% of improper selling tactics complaints, such as excessive pre-payments, wrongly accepting payments (WAP), and high-pressure sales methods, involve the beauty and fitness services industries. Such practice easily leaves consumers vulnerable to financial loss.The closure of PHYSICAL Fitness & Beauty, one of the largest gym chains in Hong Kong, in 2024 further exposed the prevalence of UTPs such as WAP, where traders accept payments from the consumer without intending to provide the good and services as promised. For the fitness and beauty industry, this commonly involves businesses persuading consumers into signing and paying for long-term service contracts whilst knowing that the said businesses are about to be closed.With the fitness sector taking up around 50% of WAPs, as well as cases involving single pre-payment complaints that exceed HK$2 million, the government sees statutory safeguards as essential to protect consumers from significant financial harm.The public consultation involved three key policy proposals specifically targeting the beauty and fitness industries (Premises that provide one single type of beauty or fitness services (yoga studios, dancing studios, martial arts studios, etc.) are proposed to be exempted, as the Government only received very few complaints associated with such premises. These measures are meant to target high-risk models that provide long-period, multi-service packages; which often involve large pre-payments.The three key policy proposals are:Statutory cooling-off periods on pre-paid consumer contractsConsumers will have 7 calendar days to reconsider contracts, with a mandatory 14-day deadline for merchants to issue refunds. The Government proposes three possible thresholds where contract amounts above such thresholds will be subject to the mandatory cooling-off requirements, namely HK$3,000, HK$8,000 and HK$15,000.Traders will be mandated to provide information to consumers on the cooling-off periods before entering into contracts.Statutory limit on contract durationBeauty and fitness contracts will have a proposed maximum duration of two years, contracts of indeterminate duration are prohibited. and the said contractual services must commence within three months of signing. These aim to reduce risks associated with long-term prepayment commitments.Expanded Organized and Serious Crimes OrdinanceSection 13L (wrongly accepting payment) of the Trade Descriptions Ordinance (TDO, Cap. 362) will be added to the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance to give the C&ED additional investigative and enforcement powers. For example, custom officers can apply for court restraint orders to freeze assets of dishonest traders; dishonest proceeds can also be confiscated.Traders who do not comply with the statutory cooling-off periods or maximum contract duration requirements would be subject to both civil and criminal sanctions, though only fines (and no custodial sentence) have been proposed.SignificanceThe statutory proposal can potentially reshape the beauty and fitness industries both operationally and in terms of public perception. Certain actors in these industries rely heavily on sales tactics instead of quality of services for profit. Stricter measures may encourage more sustainable business models built on transparency, ideally supporting the development of higher-quality services. Additionally, the infamous aggressive practices have damaged public trust in these sectors. Introducing statutory cool-off rights may help improve consumer confidence and public perception of the industries.   As of the date of this article, the Consultation Paper can be accessed at https://www.cedb.gov.hk/assets/resources/cedb/consultations-and-publications/Consultation_Paper-Trade_Descriptions_Ordinance_2026_en.pdfOur relevant practicesHaldanes’ Corporate & Commercial, Intellectual Property, and Media, Entertainment & Sports teams work closely with business owners, multinationals, and lifestyle brands to navigate the evolving regulatory landscape in Asia. While these proposed Trade Descriptions Ordinance (TDO) reforms focus on consumer protection, they directly impact business infrastructure, commercial contracts, and asset protection. Anthony Leung’s practice focuses on advising clients across dynamic consumer-facing industries—e.g. art, food and beverages, hospitality, gaming, and entertainment groups, sports, etc. — on the operation, regulation, and compliance of their businesses. As consumer contracts face mandatory cooling-off disclosures, strict two-year caps, and tighter enforcement parameters, our team is well-positioned to assist these sectors in auditing standard commercial terms, safeguarding commercial intellectual property, and ensuring comprehensive regulatory alignment.