Contractual Estoppel

Contractual Estoppel: A First Look at First Tower Trustees in Hong Kong

5 January 2023

In 2018, the English Court of Appeal handed down its decision in First Tower Trustees Ltd v CDS (Superstores International) Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 1396. In doing so the court issued important guidance on the usage of a principle known as contractual estoppel, which allows parties to bind themselves by contract to accept a particular state of affairs – for example, that representations have not been made or (if made) have not been relied on – even if the parties know that state of affairs to be untrue. This seminar will discuss the treatment of the First Tower Trustees decision in recent cases, including Ng Yuk Pui Kelly v Ng Lai Ling Winnie [2021] HKCA 724, following which tentative views will be offered on the future development of the contractual estoppel principle.

About the Speaker:

Lau Kwan Ho is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Singapore Management University, and presently also the Deputy Director of the Centre for Commercial Law in Asia. His teaching and research interests are in contract law and private law. His work, published in journals including the Cambridge Law Journal, the Law Quarterly Review and the Modern Law Review, is cited by courts in Hong Kong and Singapore, in extra-judicial speeches by English and Singapore judges, by regulatory bodies, and in academic treatises and articles regularly. He has given expert evidence in US court proceedings. Kwan Ho previously practised in the M&A department of Allen & Gledhill LLP and was a Justices’ Law Clerk with the Supreme Court of Singapore. Read more here.

Chair: Professor Lusina Ho, Harold Hsiao-Wo Lee Professor in Trust and Equity, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong

Enquiries: Flora Leung at aiiflhku@hku.hk