The chairman of a group of HKEX-listed companies was the largest named beneficiary of a will that Hong Kong’s High Court ruled was not valid. According to the South China Morning Post’s report of 11 April 2025 and the court’s subsequent costs judgment of 17 July 2026, he personally funded the failed legal action to have it upheld.
Peter Lam Kin-ngok chairs Lai Sun Group, whose listed companies include Lai Sun Garment and Lai Sun Development. An HKEX filing dated 26 January 2021 identifies Lam as chairman of Lai Sun Garment and Lai Sun Development. SCMP has reported that he is the second son of the group’s founder, Lim Por-yen, whose disputed estate was valued in court at HK$2.9 billion. A separate SCMP report published on 29 April 2025 said Lim’s third wife and daughter, Pearl Ling, believed its true value could be “many multiples greater”.
The dispute concerns two very different wills. SCMP reported on 11 April 2025 that Lim’s 1973 will divided his assets into 12 equal shares to be allocated among family members in varying proportions. A new will was signed in December 2004, shortly before Lim died aged 93. According to the same SCMP report, it excluded his third family and purported to give HK$1.92 billion to Peter Lam, HK$700 million to his elder brother and HK$296 million to Lim’s second wife and adopted son.
As SCMP reported on 11 April 2025, the High Court refused to recognise the 2004 document as Lim’s valid will. The report said Lim had severe dementia, lacked the capacity to revoke his earlier will and had never seen a draft of the new document before being told to sign it. Judge Wilson Chan said the circumstances excited the court’s suspicion “to the highest possible degree”. The judgment, as quoted by SCMP, found that the document was the product of “negotiations and jockeying between the beneficiaries, with no involvement of Mr Lim”.
The judgment did not find that Lim’s signature had been forged. As recorded in the April 2025 SCMP report and subsequently summarised in Judge Queeny Au-Yeung’s decision of 14 July 2026, the court instead concluded that the 2004 document was not Lim’s valid will because he lacked testamentary capacity and did not know or approve its contents.
Although the probate action was formally brought by the estate’s executors, the costs judgment in Re Estate of Lim Por Yen [2026] HKCFI 3672 exposed Peter Lam’s financial role. “There is no dispute that Peter Lam was the person funding these proceedings,” Chan wrote at paragraph 5. At paragraph 6, the judge added that it “cannot be disputed” that Lam stood to benefit, including by receiving a greater share of the estate than under the previous will.
The costs judgment ordered Lam and the plaintiffs to pay the litigation costs jointly and severally on an indemnity basis. At paragraphs 15 to 20, Chan repeated the probate court’s “seriously adverse findings” against Lam and other witnesses. The decision described their evidence as “untruthful and unreliable”, said the principal witnesses including Lam “cannot have been telling the truth”, and repeated the finding of a “deliberate cover-up” concerning Lim’s mental condition and examination.
Au-Yeung’s decision in [2026] HKCFI 4022 records that Lam attended the signing of the disputed will and funded the 23-day trial. At paragraphs 13 and 29, the decision also identifies alleged December 2004 transfers of Lim’s shares in Lai Sun Garment and Wisdoman to Lam and his mother as matters requiring investigation, while expressly presenting those transfers as allegations.
The inheritance battle comes amid a prolonged decline in the listed group’s market value. An HKEX filing dated 26 January 2021 records that Lam became chairman of parent company Lai Sun Garment that month, having already chaired Lai Sun Development. CompaniesMarketCap’s historical share-price data record that Lai Sun Development shares fell in every calendar year from 2021 to 2025, including falls of 61.9 per cent in 2022 and 47.9 per cent in 2023.
HK01 reported on 2 August 2025 that there had been a long-running shareholding tussle between Lam and property investor Yu Cheuk-yi, the group’s second-largest shareholder. Its analysis said the four listed Lai Sun companies’ combined market value had fallen from more than HK$14 billion in 2020 to about HK$2 billion and that Yu’s 15-year investment had “shrunk substantially”.
SCMP reported on 30 August 2026 that the estate’s lawyers had appealed the ruling invalidating the 2004 will. The report said the appeal challenged the judgment on grounds including judicial plagiarism, inadequate reasons and its factual findings concerning testamentary capacity, knowledge and approval.
