Contested Wills
Teddy Wang was declared dead in 1999. Although his body was never found, the battle over his fortune began in earnest, with at least three different wills circulating in the court system. The earliest will, the authenticity of which is not contested, was dated 1960 and split the estate equally between Teddy's father Wang Din-shin and Nina. A 1968 version produced by Din-shin (authenticity challenged) gave the entire estate to Din-shin. This will was made after Teddy discovered that his wife was having an affair. A 1990 will (dated a month before Teddy's abduction) ceded the entire estate to Nina and included the phrase "one life, one love", in English, with the rest of the will in Chinese, stating that the Wang family was disappointing. This will had a signature indicating it was witnessed by the family butler.
On 21 November 2002, after a 171-day courtroom battle featuring some of Hong Kong's most prominent lawyers and Wang Din-shin accusing Nina of adultery, High Court Justice David Yam declared the 1990 will a forgery and awarded all of Teddy Wang's estimated $128 million estate to Wang Din-shin. Nina appealed against the ruling but lost in a 2-1 decision on 28 June 2004. The money was handed over to Wang Din-shin. On 28 January 2005, Nina was formally charged with the forgery and freed on bail.
On 16 September 2005, the Court of Final Appeal overturned the previous High Court ruling, giving control of the multi-billion dollar Chinachem firm back to Mrs Wang. On 2 December 2005, prosecutors in the fraud case officially dropped all charges, effectively exonerating Wang.
Read more about this topic: Nina Wang
Famous quotes containing the words contested and/or wills:
“Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
—Anonymous. Late 19th century ballad.
The quatrain refers to the famous case of Lizzie Borden, tried for the murder of her father and stepmother on Aug. 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Though she was found innocent, there were many who contested the verdict, occasioning a prodigious output of articles and books, including, most recently, Frank Spiering’s Lizzie (1985)
“Men are not therefore put to death, or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious and contrary to men’s preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest, inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and none else, frameth and maketh men’s wills such as men would have them.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)