Wang Meiping v Huang Yilong

Facts

Wang Meiping, an Australian citizen, sued Huang Yilong, her former bank relationship manager, in HC/OC 753/2024. It was undisputed that they signed loan agreements on 24 July 2018 and 21 November 2018. According to her, she lent him US$3m as a friendly loan, transferred to an account named Alpha Innovation, and he repaid only US$1m; she claimed the balance of RMB 22,950,000, or alternatively US$2m. He denied borrowing anything. He said the money was a loan to Alpha Innovation, a company of one Ling Shan, that the two agreements were only placeholders extinguished by a later Alpha Innovation loan agreement, and alternatively that they were unenforceable under the Moneylenders Act 2008.

Default judgment for US$2m was entered on 8 January 2025 and an enforcement order was registered against a property at Greenwood Avenue that he held with his wife. On 23 January 2026 the default judgment was set aside on appeal in HC/RA 156/2025, and her application for permission to appeal against that decision was later dismissed. In HC/SUM 437/2026 she sought a worldwide or domestic Mareva injunction up to US$2m, and alternatively an interim injunction pending her intended appeal.

Issues

1. Whether the claimant had a good arguable case on the merits of her claim
2. Whether there was a real risk that the defendant would dissipate his assets
3. Whether an interim injunction should be granted pending the claimant's intended appeal against RA 156

Holding

The High Court dismissed SUM 437, declining to grant either the Mareva injunction or the interim injunction, and said it would hear the parties on costs.

Reasoning

On the merits, the court applied Bouvier, Yves Charles Edgar v Accent Delight International Ltd [2015] 5 SLR 558. The two loan agreements did not appear to be placeholders: the Alpha Innovation agreement had different parties and nothing in either suggested one superseded the other. As the written agreements showed a loan to be repaid, the claimant had a good arguable case. The moneylending presumption was rebuttable, and two loans did not clearly show a system and continuity of lending or lending to all and sundry; that was for trial.

On dissipation, the claimant had to show a real risk of unjustified dealing with assets by solid evidence. Her evidence that Ling Shan had been arrested was not strong enough to find the defendant dishonest, given the WeChat messages he produced, and in any case a wish to avoid repaying a loan is different from a propensity to dissipate assets. His mistaken company details when offering MainNet shares as security were accepted as an innocent error. The negotiation correspondence was protected by without prejudice privilege, and his solicitors' lack of instructions to accept service did not show dishonesty. The claim that his divorce was arranged to move his share of the property to his wife rested on speculation about a vacation, timing and an open letter that was silent on assets, and a division of assets by a divorce court would be a legitimate process. Having had the default judgment set aside, he was entitled to seek release of the property and not obliged to give an undertaking.

The alternative interim injunction fell away because permission to appeal had been refused, and in any event it was in substance a Mareva injunction, which failed for want of a real risk of dissipation.

From the judgment