{"id":309963,"date":"2025-08-01T18:52:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T18:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/309963\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T18:52:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T18:52:14","slug":"hong-kong-court-freezes-us1-8-billion-hsbc-account-as-wahaha-inheritance-battle-unfolds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/309963\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong court freezes US$1.8 billion HSBC account as Wahaha inheritance battle unfolds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A Hong Kong court has formally frozen an HSBC account at the heart of a high-stakes lawsuit that pits three claimants of a multibillion-dollar inheritance against the CEO of Hangzhou Wahaha Group, a beverage empire dubbed \u201cChina\u2019s Coca-Cola\u201d.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The order will remain in force until another parallel lawsuit filed in a Hangzhou court is finished, or until a further order is passed by the Hong Kong court, according to a ruling by Deputy High Court Judge Gary CC Lam on Friday.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The three plaintiffs \u2013 extramarital children of Zong Qinghou, the late founder of the group and once the richest individual in mainland China \u2013 sued their half<strong data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component-1\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa17\">&#8211;<\/strong>sister Kelly Zong Fuli, now the chairwoman and CEO of the group, in December, demanding US$1.8 billion in an HSBC account. They also said Kelly Zong, who was publicly known as her father\u2019s only child until the lawsuit surfaced, had withdrawn more than US$6 million from the account.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The High Court ruled that the account would remain frozen until further orders, noting there were \u201cserious issues to be tried\u201d in relation to the plaintiffs\u2019 claim regarding the breach of a family agreement, in which Kelly Zong had agreed to set up three offshore trusts for the three half-siblings totalling US$2.1 billion after the death of their father in February last year.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Kelly Zong Fuli with her father Zong Qinghou in an undated photo. Photo: Qq.com\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/692b205d-1b98-46fd-aad8-0ecf48c9121d_4e98251f.jpg\" title=\"Kelly Zong Fuli with her father Zong Qinghou in an undated photo. Photo: Qq.com\"\/>Kelly Zong Fuli with her father Zong Qinghou in an undated photo. Photo: Qq.com<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Wahaha said on July 14 that the lawsuits filed in Hangzhou and Hong Kong were unrelated to the company\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The US$1.8 billion in the HSBC account will be the main source of the trusts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Hong Kong court has formally frozen an HSBC account at the heart of a high-stakes lawsuit that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,113385,113377,474,50506,113380,113381,113382,3749,12522,113378,113388,113386,113383,113379,113387,2499,16,15,113384],"class_list":{"0":"post-309963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-chinas-coca-cola","10":"tag-du-jianying","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-hangzhou","13":"tag-hangzhou-shangcheng","14":"tag-hangzhou-wahaha-group","15":"tag-high-court-of-hong-kong","16":"tag-hong-kong","17":"tag-hsbc","18":"tag-jacky","19":"tag-jerry","20":"tag-jessie","21":"tag-kelly-zong-fuli","22":"tag-nongfu-spring","23":"tag-pepperdine-university","24":"tag-personal-finance","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom","27":"tag-zong-qinghou"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114955022857420103","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}