Lau Kin Lok, Ken

Ken formally joined the Queensway Chambers in 2023 after he completed his pupillage seating at Des Voeux, Temple and Queensway Chambers successively and his service as a judge’s marshal at the High Court. Versed in English, Cantonese and fluent in Mandarin, Ken is fully capable of handling cases and conducting proceedings in Chinese or English language. Ken is now building up a broad scope of practice with a relative focus on cases pertaining to commercial transactions, company operation, housing and land, intellectual property, goodwill and reputational safeguard, showbiz and the cultural industry, and public law- while keeping open to take up briefs on criminal matters occasionally.

In tandem with his legal practice, Ken has been working tightly with the International Intellectual Property Commercialization Council (IIPCC) – a permanent observer of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), United Nations, and a usual partner of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) – shortly after it was founded in 2013. Fulfilling the IIPCC’s mission to drive forward the universal IP economy, Ken has dedicated himself to numerous huge-scale and trans-national IP-oriented conferences, development projects, and exchange programmes which have an influence on exploring modern solutions to protect intangible and non-quantifiable assets, fostering regional and international harmony to welcome the opportunities and tackle the challenges engendered by artificial intelligence in unity, and bonding up innovators, investors, national offices, professionals and academics from different spheres to generate ever-growing business opportunities worldwide. Responsible primely for expanding the council’s collaboration circle, Ken maintains a particularly solid connection with the IP networks in Singapore, Seoul and Shanghai. He also represents the council in several think-tank meetings convened by the Chief Executive’s Policy Unit in Hong Kong at times. Ken currently remains in the position of General Strategic Relationships Manager at IIPCC on a wholly voluntary basis.

As regards his local appointments, Ken has been sitting in the Film Development Council since 2021 to perform the duties of making fund-vetting decisions, deliberating on and approving schemes and strategies to support and revive the film industry. He is also entrusted in the council to examine whether there are and advise on how to cope with any parodies and satires amounting to discrimination, defamatory innuendoes of public figures, misrepresentation triggering passing-off, risks of privacy intrusion, and any other latent legal or regulatory issues arising from the scenes, scripts, storylines and character design of the films potentially funded by the Film Council. Besides, Ken gave a guest speech in an Asian film-financing forum and participated in the promotional tour to several international film festivals as a Hong Kong delegate. In the beginning of 2024, Ken was appointed to the Housing Appeal Panel to hear the appeals lodged by public rental housing tenants accused of abusing housing resources and determine jointly with other panel members whether the corresponding notices-to-quit issued by the Housing Department should be enforced, cancelled or amended. Ken has adjudicated over 50 appeal cases so far covering a multitudinous mixture of issues including false declaration, persistent vacancy, chain of title, flat co-ownership, beneficial interests held in trust, succession by will, marriage in Mainland, duties of disclosure under bankruptcy, neighbouring nuisance, Government Lease, Conditions of Grant, proprietary shares in rural land, farming fields and ‘Ding’ Houses in New Territories.

Turning to the academic realm, Ken was invited to be a session speaker in the first major international academic conference premised on the unique status of Hong Kong as the only common law jurisdiction on earth adopting Chinese and English for its legal languages concurrently. During the conference, Ken had the pleasure to engage in a vibrant and in-depth discussion with scholars, lawyers and law-draftsmen from the Department of Justice known for their expertise in this domain. Two of Ken’s articles- one about digital copyright whereas the other on legal bilingualism- were selected and showcased in the HKU Student Scholarship Blog. The first article explicated online contributory infringements, the intermediate liabilities of transmission platforms, the safe harbour doctrine, and propounded a reform proposal for our cyber copyright regime by drawing reference from the US notice-and-takedown mechanism; on the other hand, the second paper contrasted the dissenting judicial approaches espoused by Hong Kong courts in different cases to interpret the ‘Equal Authenticity Principle’ for resolving the conflicts in meaning between the Chinese and English versions of statutory provisions.

Along his learning voyage, Ken had captured an array of awards in legal studies, writing and speaking. Ken also demonstrates a strong pro bono commitment by constantly offering gratuitous legal opinions to the people in need and by sharing his practicing experience and career reflections with law students.

• Commercial and Contractual Disputes
• Company and Employment Issues
• Criminal Defence, Plea and Procedures
• Confidential Information and Trade Secrets
• IP-Licensing and Competition-restraining Covenants
• Copyright Protection and Transmission Liabilities
• Film & Series Production, Investment, Agency and Distribution
• Defamation, Privacy, Moral Rights and Derivative Works
• Patents, Designs, Trademarks and Passing-off
• Property, Housing, Buildings and Nuisance
• Personal or Corporate Debts and Insolvency
• Public Policies and Administrative Decisions

Ken embarked on his pupillage by sitting with Mr. Richard LEUNG J.P. and was led to tackle a wide spectrum of civil cases involving contract, company, land, arbitration and cross-jurisdictional disputes.

After that, Ken was received by Mr. Abraham CHAN S.C. for the subsequent pupillage seat and was given the chance to take part in the preparation for a series of significant judicial review cases and litigations giving rise to constitutional issues.

Ken later became the first pupil of Dr. Alain SHAM B.B.S.’s by taking the final seat with him, during which he had the opportunity to experience a vast diversity of criminal cases from both the prosecution and defence sides under the joint supervision by Mr. Shahmim Khan KHATTAK (Kelly LAM).

On top of shadowing the above pupil-masters, Ken had the privilege in the midst of his pupillage of being awarded a month from the Hon. Mr. Justice Russell COLEMAN to serve marshalling with his Lordship.

BSS (Govt. & Laws), LLB, PCLL [HKU]; GDL [BPP, U.K.]

HKSAR v Chan H H FLCC 1178/2022- regarding a young man charged with money laundering on the basis of the money transactions in his Jockey Club betting account subsequent to lending his account card to others