Hong Kong ‘No Consent’ letters not guaranteed to freeze bank accounts

The Hong Kong Police Commissioner’s use of the ‘No Consent Regime’ to encourage three banks to freeze customer bank accounts, in circumstances where the banks had no independent suspicion of unlawful activity by bank account holders, was unlawful. The decision is relevant for a bank which receives information from the police about a customer’s account where the bank has no prior suspicions of its own: Tam Sze Leung & ors v Commissioner of Police [2021] HKCFI 3118.