Legal Threats Won't End The 'wolf-hunt': Lawmakers

Two Democratic Party lawmakers said on Monday that legal threats from former Chief Executive CY Leung won't deter them from going ahead with their so-called "wolf hunt" over the UGL payments controversy.

Lam Cheuk-ting and Andrew Wan have helped raise more than HK$2 million in a crowd-funding campaign to pursue investigations in Hong Kong, the UK and Australia, over Leung's acceptance of HK$50 million from the Australian engineering firm.

Leung received the money around the time he became Chief Executive in 2012. Concerns have been raised about whether the payments posed a conflict of interest, whether he should have paid tax on the money, and if the necessary declarations were made.

The former CE has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has threatened to sue the two legislators for defamation. But Lam says this will not get in the way of their probe into the payments.

"We will not withdraw our accusations against CY Leung because all our accusations are based on the facts and are fair comment. I urge CY Leung to produce all the relevant documents to the general public for examination," Lam said.

"Our 'wolf-hunting' campaign is still ongoing. We are closely liaising with the legal professionals in the UK and Australia. We hope that we can [persuade] our partners overseas to pursue the case as soon as possible."

The deal Leung struck with UGL was related to the company's takeover of a real estate services firm he was a director of, DTZ, which was listed in the UK.