Staying silent didn't keep this contractor off the hook, and it cost more than compensation

A contractor that refused to admit its role still owed an injured worker compensation, Deputy District Judge Adrian Lai ruled on 15 June 2026.

The case, Rai Balaram v Gurung Guman Singh and Gurung Tol Prasad, trading as T&K United, grew out of an accident on 2 August 2021 at the Hopewell Centre II site in Wanchai, Hong Kong.

The worker, a construction labourer, was measuring a metal frame alongside a ganger when the ganger suddenly snatched the metal measuring tape from him. The tape sliced his right hand, leaving a 3 to 4 cm deep laceration and injuries to his right palm and middle finger. Surgery revealed torn nerves, a partially torn muscle, and a partially cut tendon.

He was employed by the first respondent, a firm that had taken the work from a second contractor, which had in turn taken it from a fourth company engaged to carry out slipform work at the site. Under section 24(1) of the Employees' Compensation Ordinance, a principal contractor can be liable to pay compensation to a subcontractor's employee as if the worker were its own.

The worker argued that the fourth company sat at the top of that chain. The company had once been legally represented, but later filed a notice to act in person and then stayed away from the trial. Its Answer, the judge observed, "contained nothing but non-admissions," and the company chose to call no evidence.

Relying on a signed quotation...

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