Revisiting Vesting Orders In Internet Scam Cases

Summary

In our previous article titled Fraud Cases: Hong Kong Court's Jurisdiction on the Grant of Vesting Orders, our team discussed the remedy of vesting orders in providing relief to victims of internet fraud in recovering their assets that have been siphoned away by fraudsters.

The case that was discussed in that article, Hypertec Systems Inc v Yifim Ltd (HCA 1308/2021, HCMP 1829/2021, 18 February 2022) was in favour of a more proactive judicial approach – that the court does have jurisdiction to grant a vesting order in favour of the victim in recovering their assets. In Hypertec, the court did grant a vesting order in favour of the victim.

However, decisions since the case of Hypertec have taken a different view on whether the court does have jurisdiction to grant a vesting order. The latest one in this continuing line of undulation is Orion Engineered Carbons GmBH v Universall All Limited and ors (HCA 1625/2024, HCMP 210/2025, 30 May 2025). In Orion,