Estate Planning

Crouching Billionaire Nina Wang, Hidden Feng Shui Master

By Hull & Hull LLP

As we all know, Asia's richest woman Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum, died on April 3, 2007 with an estate guesstimated at HK$100 billion (a paltry US$12.9b or a piddling $15,527,045,650.09 CAD up here in still-snowing Canada), though the developer was worth maybe as low as US$4.3 billion at her death.   In a bizarre twist to the first family v. mistress/second wife scenario that permeates estates litigation, the dispute over Nina's estate pits her family and a charitable foundation as beneficiaries of a 2002 Will against her feng shui master and alleged lover, Mr. Tony Chan Chun-chuen.  Mr. Chan holds a will granting Nina's entire estate to him.

Nina has alleged variously that Mr. Chan's will is a forgery, that it is just a "feng shui will" - made to be burned for good luck but not as a testamentary instrument - after amending earlier pleadings that Nina lacked capacity and Mr. Chan used undue influence to procure the will.

Five-foot Nina was no stranger herself to estates litigation, having gained control of her late-husband's fortune in a will challenge against her 94-year old father-in-law.  Interestingly, according to the fascinating obituaries in the Washington Post and the Telegraph, the flamboyant Nina (dubbed in Hong Kong as "Little Sweetie" after a Japanese cartoon character because she favoured pigtails, colorful micro-miniskirts, bobbysocks and white PVC macs), had resisted attempts to have her late husband declared dead.  He had been kidnapped in 1990, for the second time.  Apparently grief-stricken and in denial, this had also allowed the Shanghai-born Nina to maintain control of his business empire under powers of attorney, while personally buying sufficient shares in the company to prevent her father-in-law from taking control.  Her husband's butler, an adversarial witness, died of natural causes.  Finally, out on bail facing charges of perjury and forgery, Nina won a will challenge in a fascinating, lurid trial to inherit her then-officially dead husband's estate. 

Kind of makes estates litigation in Ontario seem, well... tame. 

We get better summers though.

Have a great weekend,

Chris

Full post as published by Toronto Estate Law Blog on April 17, 2009 (boomark / email).