What happened?
Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal has held, in a case brought by a company against a former employee, that (a) harassment is a recognised civil wrong (or tort) in Hong Kong; (b) because the elements of the tort include causing an emotional or mental reaction to the victim, a company cannot be a victim and thus, being uninjured, cannot have a cause of action in the tort even where the ultimate aim may have been to harm the company or its business; (c) nonetheless an injunction will be available where the harassment was directed against employees, because it is the right and duty of the employer to bring this to an end, incl. by obtaining an injunction against the wrongdoer/harasser, if necessary; and (d) in this way, the employer can bring a representative action on behalf of employees to restrain the harasser, without those employees having to bring legal action in their own names or, worse, having to quit their jobs in order to escape the harassment.
Why is this decision important?
This judgment puts beyond doubt the existence of the tort of harassment in Hong Kong, as well as clarifying the elements of the tort. This includes deciding that a company cannot bring a claim under the tort, in its own name and for its own benefit, i.e. as the victim. Where, however, a company's employees are threatened with harassment or are being actually harassed, within the sphere of their employment (which, in the era of remote working, need not necessarily be confined to the geographical workplace), the company can apply for an injunction aimed at protecting those employees from further abuse. This is allowed, even when the employer is a company, due to the employer's well-recognised legal duty to its employees to provide a safe working environment.
It should be noted that this is in addition to, and without affecting, other modes of halting the behaviour. The corporate employer may, separately, have grounds to bring a claim under a different cause of action, e.g., the tort of trespass, or the economic tort of causing loss by unlawful means.
What does it mean for you?
This important decision will with immediate effect make it easier for companies to respond to certain types of adverse action by aggrieved parties who seek to destabilise an employer's workforce. Such threats can come from anywhere, and in recent years have been seen more often from political activists or others with a particular grievance against the company or its business. A practical point to note is that there may now be greater expectations on employers to open the cheque book and engage litigation lawyers to protect workforces especially when other measures fail.
The detail
Equity
Since its origin in the 13th century England, the court of equity has existed to ameliorate the sometimes harsh outcomes dictated by the common law. Guided by principles of fairness and justice, the court and the equitable principles it embodied developed over the centuries to meet the changing needs of society. Now merged with the court of law, equity continues as a distinct jurisdiction; judges in England, in Hong Kong and throughout the common law world retain wide discretion to apply and develop the application of equitable principles and remedies to suit the circumstances of the cases before them. Ultimately, the simple objective of equity is to ensure that justice is served.
Equity 'exists to provide an effective remedy where legal principles are inadequate to protect or enforce rights or interests, and may be invoked when it is just and convenient to do so.' One of the most recognised equitable remedies is the injunction. Judges have wide discretion in granting injunctions, but that discretion should be exercised in accordance with established equitable principles, judicial precedent, legislation and rules of the relevant court. Yet, whilst anchored to these, the injunction jurisdiction remains capable of development, with those established precedents and established categories of injunction acting as 'building blocks or foundational reference points from which the law may develop and evolve, analogically and incrementally, to address changing circumstances.'
The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal ('CFA'), on Friday 9 January 2026, demonstrated that incremental approach to the development of the injunction jurisdiction. It was held that the circumstances were such that the court would be willing to grant the plaintiff an injunction to restrain the defendant from harassing the plaintiff's employees, notwithstanding that the plaintiff did not have a cause of action against the defendant in tort.
The plaintiff in this case is the family office of the Kadoorie family, a company ('SEKSL'). Samantha Bradley had been for many years employed by SEKSL as a senior lawyer in its tax and trusts department. At the end of 2020, her employment ceased following the execution by SEKSL and Ms Bradley of a mutual separation agreement, under which Ms Bradley received a severance package worth approximately US$3 million. Shortly thereafter and for a period of approximately 18 months, Ms Bradley sent around 535 emails to employees of SEKSL and others, making extremely serious allegations against a wide number of persons representing or connected with SEKSL. Her statements included allegations of fraud, conspiracy to injure, bullying, discrimination, corporate manslaughter and modern slavery, among others. These allegations were rejected by SEKSL. Having unsuccessfully invited Ms Bradley to cease and desist, SEKSL eventually sued Ms Bradley for the tort of harassment and applied to the High Court of Hong Kong for an immediate interim injunction. Ms Bradley opposed the injunction and the parties met in court in May 2022 to hear SEKSL's interim injunction application. On the day, it was not necessary for SEKSL to formally prosecute its injunction application, because Ms Bradley instead gave undertakings to the court in terms agreed by SEKSL.
Ms Bradley reserved the right to challenge the standing of any company to sue for harassment and duly mounted that challenge by way of a strike out application. In this she was initially successful. The gravemen of her application, and of the decision of the Court of First Instance ('CFI'), was that a company by its very nature could not feel emotional or mental reaction (e.g. anxiety, annoyance, distress); and that since these were requisite elements of the tort of harassment, the company could not bring the claim. It had to be brought by the employees and other individuals, on behalf of whom SEKSL had commenced the action. Moreover, a consequence of the finding that the company lacked standing to sue Ms Bradley was that it did not have the necessary commonality to be the representative of the individual plaintiffs.
There then followed appeals of the CFI decision, initially to the Court of Appeal and eventually all the way to the CFA. During the course of the appeals, and relying on recent UK Supreme Court decisions, SEKSL developed the argument that the court had equitable jurisdiction in the present circumstances to grant a 'free-standing injunction'. Normally, to obtain a remedy from the court, a plaintiff has to show that it has an enforceable right, i.e. a cause of action, against the defendant. Injunctions are an equitable remedy and, as such, the court has discretion whether to grant one. Injunctions have for some time been available in 'no cause of action' cases. For example, Norwich Pharmacal or Chabra injunctions, which preserve documents and money in the hands of innocent parties, have been examples of injunctions being granted in cases where the plaintiff has no actual claim against the defendant, who is injuncted only because it holds that evidence or money/asset. SEKSL argued that the circumstances of the present case justified extending this jurisdiction of 'free-standing injunctions' to allow SEKSL to restrain Ms Bradley from further acts of harassment against the employee and others.
What were those circumstances? The CFA recognised an employer's duty to provide a safe working environment to its employees, whilst acknowledging that the common law, in denying in Hong Kong a corporate a right to bring a claim in the tort of harassment in its own name, effectively prevented the employer (SEKSL) from taking the necessary steps to halt the harassment. This was, in the view of the CFA, inequitable and required the court to extend the injunction jurisdiction to ameliorate this potential injustice.
... we are of the view that, in a case such as the present, where an employee is subjected to harassment by another person ...in the course of their employment, and where the harassment is, in substance, directed at the employer, the employer ought to have standing to seek injunctive relief to protect the employee. Such a development or extension of the Broadmoor jurisdiction is justified in light of the special relationship between employer and employee in matters arising from the course of employment.'
It followed that SEKSL had sufficient commonality of interest to be the employees' representative plaintiff.
What next?
SEKSL is now entitled, after appropriate amendment of pleadings to take account of the CFA's findings, to take the case on to trial and seek a permanent injunction.
P.S.
An interesting postscript to the case concerns the position of SEKSL's external legal advisers, Simmons & Simmons, individual representatives of whom had been named and targeted in Ms Bradley's email bombardment. Two partners in particular were accused of serious misconduct and breach of professional duty. Since those two were not employees of SEKSL, they cannot be protected under the umbrella of the aforementioned injunction; but the CFA drew support from a person's right to legal advice and representation, which exists whether that person is an individual or a company. The CFA thus held that:
'... the plaintiff may also seek an injunction to restrain harassment of its lawyers, insofar as such conduct interferes with the plaintiff's ability to obtain legal advice, services and representation ...'
An example would be a company which is targeted by animal rights protesters for testing its products on animals; and the harassment extends to external lawyers who advise on, say, IP protection for those products; or general employment law matters; or commercial contract advice. The company would need to show that its access to its lawyers of choice was being impeded by the defendant’s harassment of the lawyers, necessitating injunctive relief to stop the harassment.
