Birmingham International Holdings announced to the HKSE today that they are pursuing legal action against Carson Yeung, Peter Pannu along with two companies namely Asia Rays Ltd and Amazing Top International Enterprises Ltd for various breaches of fiduciary duties.

The announcement confirms that BIH are suing for:

• (a) HK$3,723,754 from Asia Rays and/or Mr. Yeung for payments made from the Company to Asia Rays purportedly under the Asia Rays Agreement;
• (b) alternatively to (a) above, an account of profits from Mr. Yeung;
• (c) HK$6,136,830 from Mr. Yeung for payments made as remuneration to Mr. Pannu under the BIHL Service Agreement;
• (d) HK$76,427,269 from Mr. Yeung for expenses being wrongfully claimed;
• (e) HK$15,057,000 from Mr. Yeung for recovery of all amounts paid to him in director’s emoluments;
• (f) compound interest on the above sums;
• (g) costs.

In addition, the announcement confirms that BCFC is claiming for

• (a) £1,248,482 from Asia Rays and/ or Mr. Yeung for payments made by BCFC to Asia Rays;
• (b) £180,000 from Amazing Top and/or Mr. Yeung for payments made to Amazing Top;
• (c) alternatively to (a) and (b) above, an account from Mr. Yeung of the monies under his control and paid out by BCFC to Asia Rays and Amazing Top;
• (d) £265,000 from Asia Rays for payments made to Asia Rays in alleged commission;
• (e) compound interest on the above sums;
• (f) costs.

The stand out cost to me is the HK$76million that was wrongfully claimed in expenses. This is reported in Sing Pao to cover expenses for entertainment, air tickets, hotels, consultants, bodyguards and to purchase three cars.

The timing of the announcement is brilliant too, as it comes just two days before Peter Pannu is due in court with his legal action against BIH for unpaid sums of wages. Back in June (to the disbelief of a couple of commenters, mentioning no names) I did say that I thought BIH wouldn’t take that lying down and would counter-claim, and it appears that has now come true (albeit in a separate action).

I’m reluctant to go into too much detail over this as it is an open/pending court case and I am aware of facts and documentation that could prejudice a decision. What I would say is that a lot of this is stuff I have referred to in the past – particularly in relation to Pannu’s consultancy agreement (the Asia Rays money) and the housing agreement.

I also wish to be careful as there is elements of criminal activity implied; the announcement alleges that 90% of ATIEL was held in trust for Carson Yeung – if Carson paid monies to ATIEL to cover Pannu’s living expenses, and that company turns out to be mostly held in trust for himself then I think there are issues over whether that is money laundering – something I wouldn’t want to allege myself. It’s worth noting that there is no allegation that Carson Yeung owns any part of Asia Rays Ltd and that allegations made by fans with respect to the consultancy agreement could still be easily construed as libel.

It’s for this reason I’m not going to allow comments on this article at this moment. As more information becomes available I will write a fuller analysis.

Tags: Asia Rays, BIH, Carson Yeung, Ernst and Young, HKSE, Peter Pannu