Three months’ jail for foreman of airport expansion works subcontractor charged by ICAC for soliciting and accepting bribes from bar-benders

A foreman of a subcontractor of the Terminal 2 expansion works of the Hong Kong International Airport, charged by the ICAC, was today (June 9) sentenced to three months’ imprisonment at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts for soliciting and accepting bribes totalling about $16,000 from three bar-benders for assisting them to continue their employment and assigning overtime work to one of them to earn extra payments.

Ko Chun-yin, 31, then foreman of Ho Chau & Sons (HK) Engineering Limited (HCL), was sentenced to a jail term of three months and ordered to repay his then employer over $12,000 in restitution, equivalent to the amount of bribes involved in the present case.

The defendant earlier pleaded guilty to two counts of agent soliciting an advantage and six counts of agent accepting an advantage, contrary to section 9(1)(a) of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.

In sentencing, Magistrate Mr Gary Chu Man-hon noted that the offences in the present case were serious in nature that they came as a blow to the local labour market, lowered workers’ morale and undermined Hong Kong’s clean reputation. The court had to send out a clear message to the public that the corrupt deserved severe punishment. The magistrate took a starting point of six months’ imprisonment and reduced the jail term of the defendant to three months having considered his guilty plea and immediate full restitution of the bribes concerned.

The court heard that HCL was a subcontractor of the Terminal 2 expansion works of the Hong Kong International Airport at the material time. The defendant was a foreman of HCL responsible for leading a team of bar-benders and assigning work to them. Should workers be required to work overtime, they would be paid 1.5 to two times of the standard hourly rate. HCL prohibited its employees from soliciting or accepting any advantages from others in relation to its business and affairs.

Between April 2022 and February 2023, the defendant had respectively solicited from three bar-benders bribes of $100 per working day or an unspecified amount of “tea money” for assisting them to continue their employment with HCL. During the period, the defendant had eventually accepted bribes totalling $6,800 from the trio.

The defendant had also solicited from one of the bar-benders bribes of $200 per working day for arranging him to perform overtime work to earn extra payments.
The bar-bender reluctantly paid bribes totalling about $6,000 to the defendant for his overtime work on 30 working days.

The ICAC investigation stemmed from a corruption complaint. Enquiries revealed that the workers believed that the defendant had the authority to dismiss them. The trio reluctantly paid bribes to the defendant as they worried about losing their jobs. One of the workers was dismissed on the spot after he refused to pay a bribe of $3,000 solicited by the defendant.

HCL rendered full assistance to the ICAC during its investigation into the case.

The prosecution was today represented by ICAC officer Moon Leung.