Restaurant dispute produces targeted disclosure, not open-ended access

The Supreme Court ordered financial disclosure in a dispute involving Ming Cuisine Foods, while refusing wider requests that lacked a sufficient connection to the pleaded issues. The 18 September ruling addressed evidence-gathering, not whether either side had proved oppression or financial misconduct.

Kwok-Hing Lee alleged that he had been excluded from the restaurant company and remained entitled to an interest in its profits. Those claims were disputed. The judge ordered company financial statements, bank statements, tax returns and records of payments to the other individual defendants because they could test the rival accounts before and after the alleged buyout.

The request for New Hope Foods’ records failed. Suspicion that a related business received assets, including shared registered addresses, did not supply the evidential foundation for the exceptional third-party disclosure order sought. The court likewise refused broad demands for Lee’s and associated companies’ bank records where relevance or necessity was not established.

Lee was required to disclose records of company payments to him after March 2022. Costs were apportioned to reflect each application’s limited success, and a further case-management conference was fixed. The decision preserves the distinction between obtaining relevant evidence and proving the underlying allegations.

Interlocutory disclosure decision. The official listing spells the company name differently; this report follows the judgment cover and text, Ming Cuisine Foods Limited. Complete official judgment reviewed; subsequent appeals or treatment have not been checked.