By way of an update to the series of recent Court of First Instance decisions on whether a winding up petition ought to be stayed where the underlying dispute is governed by an arbitration clause, Harris J has very recently granted the Petitioner in Re Shandong Chenming Paper Holdings Ltd [2023] HKCFI 2731 leave to appeal.

Notably, Harris J commented that it is highly undesirable to have a number of conflicting Court of First Instance decisions on the same issue (which we have discussed in our blog posts on Lasmos, Simplicity, Shandong Chenming and Inversion Productions) and it would be desirable to have clarity from the higher Courts in this regard.

The appeal of Shandong Chenming may be heard together with Re Simplicity, where our firm successfully acted for the petitioning creditor. Stay tuned for a further update on this in due course.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.