19/09/2019
HCMP2801/2015 THE UNIVERSITY
12.
On
8 November
OF HONG KONG v. HONG
KONG
COMMERCIAL
BROADCASTING
2015, an audio recording of what was
CO LTD AND ANOTHER
said at the
29 September 2015 Meeting by Dr Rosanna Wong and a response by the
Vice-Chancellor, Prof Peter Mathieson, together with a transcript became
accessible in an online discussion forum based in Taiwan.
A related article
appeared on Apple Daily the next day.
Parties, intervention and joinder
13. Instituting an action against a defendant who is identified by description
and not by name
is unusual but there are precedents for this where the
circumstances so warranted.
In Bloomsbury Publishing Group plc v News
Group Newspapers Ltd |2003| 1 WLR
Potter
book
had
been
stolen
from
1633, where copies of a new Harry
the
printer
and
offered
to
certain
newspapers for publication, an order was made by the English High Court
against:
*“... the person or persons who have offered the publishers of the Sun, the
Daily Mail, and the Daily Mirror newspapers a copy of the book ‘Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix’ by J K Rowling or any part thereof and the
person or persons who has or have physical possession of a copy of the said
book or any part thereof without the consent of the claimants.”
14.
In Hong Kong, an injunction was granted in Billion Star Development
Ltd v Wong
Tak Chuen
[2013] 2 HKLRD
[2012]
2 HKLRD
85 (per Au
J) at §§49-56
and
714 (CA) at §$70-75 against a defendant who consisted
of unknown persons identified by description.
The practice was approved by
the Court of Appeal which stated that the crucial point is that the description
must be sufficiently certain so as to identify both those who are included and
those who are not: see also Bloomsbury Publishing Group plc, supra, at §21.
15.
The 2" defendants, according to the Originating Summons as amended
in line with the variations of the injunction made at hearing on 6 November,
are:
“The person or persons unknown who has or have appropriated, obtained
and/or offered or intend to offer for sale and/or publication the confidential
information in respect of the Relevant Meetings (as defined in Part A of
Schedule 1 of this Amended Originating Summons) of the Council of the
plaintiff, excluding the information that is already in the public domain (as set
out in Part B of Schedule 1 of this Amended Originating Summons).”
The Schedule to the Amended Originating Summons reads as follows:
https: //legalref.judiciary.hk/Irs/common/ju/ju_frame.jsp? DIS=101619&currpage=T
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