The Court enforced a Chinese court judgment for ¥185.7 million at common law, rejecting defences of fraud and natural justice. On the fraud defence, the Court held that the defendant failed to establish that the Confirmation Letter (the key document supporting the quantum of the judgment) was a sham, notwithstanding various evidentiary criticisms of the plaintiff's witnesses and discrepancies in the payment records. On the natural justice defence, while the Court noted authority cautioning against treating foreign modes of service that do not involve personal notification (here, service by public announcement under Chinese civil procedure law) as sufficient notice, the defendant failed to prove that he lacked actual notice of the proceedings, given the plaintiff's evidence of telephone and in-person warnings about the lawsuit. The Court also resolved a procedural issue by permitting evidence to be taken by video link from Hong Kong where taking evidence directly from mainland China raised concerns about compliance with Chinese law.
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