The lawsuit claims Hui conspired with financier Charles Chan Kwok-keung – ex-chairman of Hong Kong broadcaster TVB – to block Oei from finding an alternative development partner to Hui’s Concord Pacific.

The claims in the lawsuit, filed on March 3 in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, are unproven and untested in court.

Concord has yet to file a response, but told the South China Morning Post it strongly disputed the allegations.

Hui’s vice-president at Concord, David Ju, is not a party to the lawsuit, but Oei accuses him of having “threatened the plaintiffs with prolonged litigation and bodily harm if they did not acquiesce to Concord’s demands”.

The case is the latest round in the sprawling battle between Oei and Hui over the site, which is surrounded by Concord’s developments.

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Oei won a major victory last summer, when BC Supreme Court Justice Peter Voith dismissed a lawsuit by Concord that accused Oei of reneging on the 2015 agreement. Concord is appealing.

Created by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, Concord has spent decades shaping Vancouver’s skyline by developing the 82-hectare (202-acre) downtown site of the Expo 86 world’s fair that Li bought in 1988 for C$320 million – a bargain that the CBC has called “the deal of the century”.

Hui’s family bought Concord from Li a few years later – but not before Oei had already bought the fair’s Plaza of Nations site from Li in 1989 for C$40 million.

In recent years the Plaza of Nations site was valued at C$500 million, and later at C$800 million by Oei.

Oei and Hui’s previous courtrooms struggles have depicted the forging and collapse of their deal in negotiations that spanned Hong Kong, Singapore and Vancouver.

Meetings were lubricated with “copious amounts of wine”, according to Hui, 55, who said the older tycoon, 72, had helped introduce him to drinking via “world class” bottles from his cellar.

But although the pair had known each other since 1989, they had vastly different management styles and the lawsuits also illustrate a collision of their business cultures.

In his 2019 ruling, Justice Voith described Hui as a delegator focused on strategy, while the “autocratic” Oei held such tight control of his operations that he limited his top executive in Canada “to such things as buying office supplies or paying utility bills”.

Fine wine, a friendship and a deal gone wrong

The dispute between Oei and Hui has centred on the so-called Heads of Agreement, a deal drawn up at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong in mid-2015 to have Concord buy into a joint venture with Oei to develop the Plaza of Nations.

Concord had long coveted the site, with Hui saying in a 2016 affidavit that he had discussed with Oei the possibility of buying it off him or jointly developing it for 25 years.

The pair got to know each other when his family were minor shareholders with Li in Concord, Hui said. There were once discussions that the Huis might go halves with Oei in buying the land off Concord, but in the end the Singapore tycoon bought the site alone in 1989; the Huis went on to buy Concord from Li in 1992.

Over the years, Hui and Oei became friends, despite their age gap. “He and I often dined together when he was in Vancouver,” Hui said. He described Oei as “a wine connoisseur and a world class collector. He brought some of the best wines in the world to Vancouver to drink with me … I rarely drank alcohol previously [and] Oei was pleased to see that I learned from him about wine.”

It was against this backdrop that Hui attended a dinner in May 2015 at Oei’s 10,000 sq ft Vancouver mansion, the historic Rio Vista in the city’s Kerrisdale neighbourhood. “Oei gave me his ‘happy price’ for the land: C$500million,” Hui swore.

A few days later, they met again in Singapore, with Hui touring Oei’s home, “one of the largest houses in Singapore”, then the tycoon’s Buddha museum, before agreeing to reconvene their negotiations in Hong Kong.

There, in the Four Seasons, they agreed on a C$500 million total price for the joint venture, with Concord getting half. Concord would make phased payments to Oei, representing the first 50 per cent of the price: C$10 million up front, then C$40 million, with a further C$75 million payable once rezoning approval was granted by the city.

But Oei never received the second payment.

The deal began to collapse amid disagreement over tax and other details, as Concord withheld the C$40 million payment.

In his affidavit, Hui said there were more negotiations over drinks at Hong Kong’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel, bottles of wine on Hui’s yacht, at Vancouver’s La Terrazza restaurant and Notch Bar, and finally at “the best restaurant in Singapore”, where Hui said “some great wine” was served.

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But a few days after that meal at the unnamed restaurant, Oei commenced legal action in Singapore against Concord for an alleged breach of contract regarding the failure to pay the C$40 million. In October 2015, Concord launched its own lawsuit in Vancouver, saying Oei had negotiated in bad faith and broke an agreement not to discuss the Plaza of Nations deal with rival developers.

Justice Voith threw out Concord’s case in its entirety last July, awarding costs to Oei, saying the Heads of Agreement did not amount to “a ‘binding obligation to negotiate’ or to do so in ‘good faith’”.

Evidence at trial by Concord’s Ju about the deal was “in numerous respects, dishonest”, Voith said. “Furthermore, his interactions with the Defendants were, in multiple respects, dishonest.” The judge said there was “no existing agreement” between Concord and Oei.

In his ruling, Voith contrasted the business styles of Oei and Hui. Oei he said, operated like the “hub of a wheel”, with underlings turning directly to him for decisions. “All information, of even comparatively limited significance, flowed from them to Mr Oei,” Voith said. He also noted that Oei “does not use a computer or receive email directly”.

In his affidavit, Hui repeatedly referred to Oei’s supposed aversion to lengthy written agreements, saying the older man thought of himself “as a man of his word; detailed writing was not necessary”.

Voith said that Hui, on the other hand, “delegates most decisions to the employees of Concord or these other entities. Mr Hui said that he dealt primarily with questions of strategy and major relationships”.

In an email to the Post, Concord Pacific Acquisitions, the entity involved in both lawsuits, said it was appealing Voith’s decision and disputed the claims in the new lawsuit.

“We strongly disagree with Mr Oei’s allegations. We sued Mr Oei for abuse of process connected to the Plaza case. Since our appeal from last year’s judgment and all these other claims are before the court, we do not wish to comment any further,” it said.

Chan, who stepped down as head of TVB in February, said by email that it was “not too appropriate to talk at this moment” about Oei’s case, which he had passed on to his lawyer.

Oei’s lawyer, Bill Dick, said he would speak to his client about the Post’s request for comment but did not otherwise respond.

In the lawsuit, Oei claims that Chan provided Hui with financing to meet its end of the 2015 deal. It says the scheduled second payment of C$40 million was placed into a trust account, but then was “surreptitiously transferred out”. This was done without telling Oei, so as to dissuade him from terminating negotiations with Concord, he claims.

This was allegedly part of a “pattern of concealed wrongful conduct”. “The misrepresentations were intended to induce Oei into continuing to negotiate with the defendants instead of interested third parties,” the lawsuit says, listing Vancouver’s Aquilini Group and Singapore’s Asia-Pacific Strategic Investment Ltd.

Legal action by Concord was further intended to thwart Oei’s efforts to find an alternative development partner, he said.

In 2018, amid the ongoing Concord lawsuit, Ju had “threatened” Oei that “we can hold you up for more than five years with this litigation”, Oei’s lawsuit claims. Later, “Ju, on behalf of the defendants, said to [Chu Yow-Lin, Oei’s brother-in-law and a top executive in Canada] to ‘be careful’ and then walked away”.

The allegation of a threat of “bodily harm” is not further detailed.

“These threats were clearly made [to] pressure Oei into accepting an unsatisfactory deal with the defendants instead of a better deal with a third party,” the lawsuit says, while Concord’s legal action was intended to deter other developers from going into business with Oei.

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The lawsuit blames Hui, his firms, and Chan for Oei allegedly losing a C$800 million deal with Asia-Pacific Strategic Investment to develop the Plaza of Nations.

Instead, because of the litigation risk, Oei says he was “forced to later sell a 22.5 per cent interest in the Plaza lands deal to a Mr Yang based upon a total reduced market valuation of C$555.55 million”.

“Mr Yang” was not further identified.

An adverse real estate market since the July 2019 court ruling meant that the plaintiffs suffered economic damages “in excess of C$245 million”.

The lawsuit seeks damages, punitive damages and costs. The plaintiffs are Oei; Hong Kong Expo Holdings, the Hong Kong firm through which he owns the site; and his Canadian development firm, Canadian Metropolitan Properties Corporation. The defendants are Hui, Chan, Concord Pacific Acquisitions and parent company One West.

Rezoning for the site was granted by City Hall to Canadian Metropolitan Properties in 2018, and efforts continue to develop the site. Plans include terraced residential buildings up to 30 storeys high, an ice rink and a new sea wall. There would be 1.6 million square feet of housing, 350,000 square feet for commercial use and a 69-space childcare centre.

Oei was one of the 40 children of the famed Indonesian billionaire Eka Tjipta Widjaja. In an interview with the Post last year after the dismissal of Concord’s lawsuit, Oei said: “In the end we won, so we can say, justice [has been served].”

Chan, one of Hong Kong’s best-known deal makers, has recently been in the headlines after stepping down last month as chairman of TVB, Hong Kong’s dominant free-to-air broadcaster. Chan, 64, also sold his interest in Young Lion Holdings, the biggest single shareholder of TVB.

The Hongcouver blog is devoted to the hybrid culture of its namesake cities: Hong Kong and Vancouver. All story ideas and comments are welcome. Connect with me by email at [email protected] or on Twitter, at @ianjamesyoung70.