A plant engineer of a hi-tech electronic product manufacturer was responsible for maintenance of the company's production facilities.  The plant engineer came to know a maintenance service supplier who frequently treated him to lavish entertainment at clubs and leading restaurants.  Later, the supplier invited the plant engineer to join his company as a partner and promised him a share of the company's annual profits if the plant engineer agreed to award more contracts to him thereafter.  Mindful of the supplier's past generosity, the plant engineer felt embarrassed to turn down the supplier's offer.

A project engineer is employed by a chemical product manufacturer to supervise the engineering works performed by its contractors.   Due to his job nature, he develops a close companionship with a contractor who has recently undertaken a gas tank repair project of the company.

Learning that the project engineer suffers from substantial loss in a recent stock investment, the contractor immediately offers to lend the project engineer $200,000 to help him overcome the financial difficulty.

When time comes for an inspection to be conducted for the gas tank repairing works, the contractor requests the project engineer to turn a blind eye to certain defects found in the finished works, saying that the defects can have little chance to pose a safety hazard.   He also reminds the project engineer of his generosity to him in the past.   The project engineer finds it difficult to require the contractor to rectify all the defects found in the works.

When receiving his company's instruction to design a computer software for a digital answering machine, a company's software engineer claimed that he was too busy to take up the job and recommended it to be contracted out to an outside software house which was owned solely by his former colleague.

The software house owner at first had no intention to undertake the job.  But the software engineer persuaded him to secure the job first and then sub-contract it back to the software engineer.  Using the software house as a disguise to deceive his own company, the software engineer could pocket $95,000 being 90% of the project fee while the rest would go to the owner.

Eva was a clever and efficient staff member working on a fixed-term contract in a large firm.  She could easily complete her assignments before the deadlines; but she preferred not letting other colleagues know about that because she did not want extra workload given to her and making other colleagues look less capable.  Being a fixed-term contract staff member, she understood that she would leave the firm at the end of the contract.  Hoping to make her mark one day and to secure future income, she was thinking the possibility of developing her side-business during the office hours by using the firm’s resources while pretending working on certain projects in the office. 

Eva thought to herself: it was not her fault that she was more efficient and capable than other colleagues.  She was only a fixed-term contract staff member and would leave the firm one day.  She needed to prepare herself for the future.

Was that justified for Eva’s secret plan?  What about the interest of the firm?  What factors does Eva need to consider before taking her course of action?

Timmy, an estate agent, was commissioned by Mrs Chung, a landlord, to sell a residential unit at $9,000,000. Ms Lam, a client, expressed willingness to buy the unit at $8,780,000 but instead of informing Mrs Chung of the offer, Timmy told Mrs Chung that a client had agreed to buy her unit at $8,580,000 in the name of a limited company. He persuaded Mrs Chung to sell the unit at a reduced price for cash flow reason as there were signs that property prices were going down. Mrs Chung eventually agreed. However, Mrs Chung later found out that, after the transaction was completed, the buyer had immediately sold the unit to Ms Lam at $8,780,000. She reported the case to the ICAC which subsequently revealed that Timmy was one of the shareholders of the limited company which was the buyer.

Mrs Mo, a flat owner, commissioned an estate agency as the sole agent for the sale of a shop premises priced at $13.6 million. The company assigned Anna and Bill to take care of the matter.

One day, Anna found a buyer who offered to buy the premises for $14 million. As Anna could not reach Mrs Mo at that moment and had to leave office for an urgent meeting, she asked Bill to contact Mrs Mo. When Bill contacted Mrs Mo, he told her that a buyer had offered $12.8 million for the premises. Bill eventually persuaded Mrs Mo to accept the offer and sign a provisional sale and purchase agreement.

The next day, Bill told Anna that the shop premises had been sold to his client Mr Sung who was willing to re-sell the premises to Anna’s original buyer as a confirmor. Sensing something was suspicious, Anna reported to her supervisor that Bill might have breached the company’s code of practice by showing favour to Mr Sung to sell him the premises at a lower price.

While the estate agency conducted an internal investigation, Bill begged Anna to falsely claim that she had only met the original buyer who made the $14 million offer after the provisional sale and purchase agreement had been signed. Anna immediately refused.

In fact, the whole situation happened because Bill did not want to share the commission equally with Anna. Instead of co-operating with Anna, he wanted to handle the transaction alone. He thus sought assistance from his friend Mr Sung in buying the shop at a lower price and then re-selling it as a confirmor to Anna’s original buyer at a higher price. Through this way, Bill not only could receive more than $50,000 commission from both the buyer and seller, he could also share the profits from the price difference with Mr Sung. The estate agency refused to pay Bill the commission and reported the situation to the ICAC.

Director Mr Lai was a village-type house developer and a director of an estate agency. His agency had acquired a land lot in the New Territories for constructing village-type houses.

Mr Lai assigned the project to his assistant Clement who held an estate agent’s licence. Clement knew Mr Shum who claimed himself a village representative. They often gambled together and Clement ended up owing money to Mr Shum. When Clement failed to make a repayment, Mr Shum asked Clement to deceive Mr Lai by making use of Mr Lai’s eagerness to get the project underway so that Clement could repay the debts. Clement felt he had no alternative but to do as Mr Shum instructed.  One day, Clement told Mr Lai that Mr Shum, the village representative, had asked the company to donate $500,000 to the village fund. Otherwise, the village residents would object the coming village-type house construction project. To avoid complications, Mr Lai made a cheque to Mr Shum and Clement returned a false receipt on Mr Shum’s behalf.  

Later, Mr Lai suspected that corruption might be involved in the incident and reported it to the ICAC.  After investigation, it was found that Mr Shum was not a real village representative, but only an ordinary villager.

Ronald worked in an estate agency. His employer trusted him and provided him with training; yet Ronald felt he could have done better. Ronald planned to marry his girlfriend in a year’s time. To prepare for the costly wedding, he applied for a huge loan from a finance company, putting himself in a position where he had to work very hard to repay the debt. After successfully renting out Ms Yeung’s flat at $30,000 per month, Ronald asked Ms Yeung to deposit the $15,000 commission into the bank account of a consultancy firm which was set up by himself. Ronald also lied about the consultancy firm being a subsidiary of the estate agency which he worked for. To conceal the whereabouts of the commission, Ronald submitted a false report to his employer stating that Ms Yeung’s tenancy transaction had been facilitated by a consultancy firm and Ms Yeung would only be willing to pay commission to the consultancy firm. Ronald’s employer was suspicious about these arrangements and checked the consultancy firm’s details. Ronald’s dishonest act was revealed and a report was made to the ICAC.

Gordon was an estate agent in an estate agency.  Mr Yu, a client, commissioned Gordon to sell four commercial units, specifying a minimum average price of $20,000 per square foot. As Gordon knew his cousin Johnny planned to invest in commercial buildings in that district, he recommended Mr Yu’s units and sold two of them to Johnny at around $18,000 per square foot. To thank Gordon, Johnny offered him “tea money” of $150,000. Gordon then found another buyer, Mr Pau, for the remaining two units, asking $24,000 per square foot in order to fulfil Mr Yu’s price instructions. After several negotiations, the transaction was concluded at $22,000 per square foot. Although Gordon succeeded in selling Mr Yu’s units at an average price of $20,000 per square foot, Mr Yu suspected that Gordon had favoured Johnny and corruption was involved. He therefore reported the case to the ICAC. Gordon argued in court that the transaction had been concluded according to Mr Yu’s wishes and neither the estate agency nor Mr Yu had suffered any loss. However, the estate agency employing Gordon had stipulated that no agent was allowed to accept any private advantage from clients. The seller Mr Yu was also dissatisfied with Gordon’s behaviour.