Former TVB general manager Stephen Chan Chi-wan and his assistant Edthancy Tseng Pei-kun appeared in High Court on Tuesday in relation to a corruption case following an appeal by the Department of Justice against the pair’s earlier acquittal.
The appeal came after Chan and Tseng were previously twice ruled not guilty of corruption.
Chan and Tseng were charged with corruption and fraud after receiving HK$112,000 for a 2009 event at the Olympian City shopping mall in Tai Kok Tsui—payment which Chan failed to disclosed to his then employer, TVB. District Court Judge Poon Siu-tung handed down a “not guilty” verdict to the pair in 2011.
The Department of Justice subsequently appealed the verdict, saying that Poon had failed to show sufficient grounds for acquitting them. The case was sent back to Poon for reconsideration in 2013, but he stood by his original verdict.
The Department of Justice, now appealing for a second time, is represented by Senior Counsel Eric Kwok Tung-ming.
According to Kwok, Chan had claimed that TVB agreed by acquiescence his acceptance of payment for the event, but TVB’s Executive Director Mark Lee Po-on did not know that Chan was accepting payment for the appearance, let alone approved of it.
The defence argued that Chan had no intention of deliberately withholding details of the transaction from his former employer, and that Chan genuinely believed that TVB would have approved of him appearing at the event and accepting payment for it if it had known.
The trial is expected to continue for two days.
