Disgraced tycoon returns to Sun Hung Kai property empire after jail term in Hong Kong bribery case involving city’s former No. 2 official
- Thomas Kwok has been appointed as senior director at group subsidiary Sun Hung Kai Real Estate Agency
- The 67-year old tycoon was released from Stanley Prison in March 2019 after serving term for a bribery case involving one of the city’s highest officials
Disgraced Hong Kong property tycoon Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong is returning to his family business empire, nine months after completing a jail term for a 2014 bribery scandal involving one of the city’s highest public officials.
Kwok, 67, has been appointed as a senior director at Sun Hung Kai Real Estate Agency, a unit of Hong Kong’s largest developer Sun Hung Kai Properties, according to an internal announcement to group employees on Thursday.
“He will focus on long-term strategy of land planning and project development, and will not be involved in daily operations of the group,” according to the announcement. The board of directors supported his appointment, it added.
The tycoon was convicted in December 2014 for bribing former Chief Secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan in exchange for favours, and banned from company directorship for five years. He was released from the Stanley Prison in March last year, after serving about two-thirds of his sentence for good behaviour, and was greeted by his son and daughter and younger brother.
The scandal centred on a payment of HK$8.5 million (US$1.1 million) Kwok made to Hui through two middlemen, before the latter rose to the No. 2 job in 2005. Hui was later put in charge of property projects, including those in which Sun Hung Kai had substantial interests.
The 71-year old Hui himself was released from the same prison last month after serving most of his 7-½-year term. The court had found him guilty of pocketing nearly HK$20 million from the developer in the case.
