The Court of First Instance has requested for the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) to submit two reports to the court regarding the lawsuit case between Polytec Asset Holdings Ltd (Polytec) and local Chinese newspaper Son Pou.
The second court session of the case took place on Friday. Four witnesses of the prosecution (Polytec) were called to court in order to present their testimonies. The four witnesses included the managing director of Polytec (Yeung Kwok Kwong), and Polytec’s (Macau) sales and project managers.
Polytec’s lawyer, former lawmaker Leonel Alves, questioned the first witness (Yeung) about Lei Kong’s (the first defendant) eight articles which have been accused of defamation towards Polytec.
In response to the lawyer, Yeung said that phrases used in Lei Kong’s column, in particular those including such terms as “bossy articles”, “fraud”, “seduce”, “intentional fraud” and “misleading advertisement” (among others) were “absolutely inaccurate, distorted, and seriously defamatory.”
Questions were once again focused on whether the Polytec group knew, since the beginning, that it could complete the housing project, since it kept carrying out pre-sales. The first defendant, Lei Kong, who is a Son Pou columnist), accused Polytec group of lying to the buyers claiming that Polytec already knew that it could not complete the housing project.
As Yeung explained, the Pearl Horizon developer “had no intention” and also “had never thought” that the project could not be completed.
Moreover, according to Yeung and other witnesses, in 2006, Polytec got an approval for eight years of utilization of the relevant land plot. In early 2010, DSSOPT issued a Plan of Urban Conditions to Polytec attached with the bureau’s newest requirements for the project’s master layout plan.
In 2011, Polytec made changes according to DSSOPT, which eventually approved the plan. However, in the same year, according to the witnesses, the government required Polytec to submit environment evaluation reports. Such reports concerning Polytec’s business operation in Macau had not been requested for approximately 40 years.
The witnesses said that, in total, Polytec spent approximately three years submitting six environmental reports to the Macau government regarding the Pearl Horizon project.
“For three years of environment evaluation reports there should absolutely be compensation. [On accounts of the 1,200 sunny days], we can only count the days we can use. If we cannot use the days, how can we count them?” Yeung questioned.
“Environment evaluation reports are very rare in Macau. I have never seen one before,” declared another witness, who is a senior project manager at Polytec.
A second Polytec project manager, surnamed Leong, also stressed that, “in 2006, the government did not mention anything about environment evaluation reports. It only said that [Polytec] would need to submit an environment evaluation report five years later.”
Polytec started the Pearl Horizon pre-sale in January 2011, and ended it in June 2013.
Each pre-sale contract stated that Polytec would finish building the project within 1,200 sunny days.
In January 2014, DSSOPT issued a license to Polytec for starting the construction. However, the license was only valid until February 2014, according to the first witness.
The license was later renewed until the end of 2015, shortly before the Macau government announced the expiration of the Pearl Horizon land plot, in accordance with Macau’s latest land law.
This short period of construction allowed Polytec to only finish part of the construction.
According to the presiding judge, DSSOPT will submit two different reports: one related to the details of the master plan change of Pearl Horizon projects and another concerning the environment evaluation report issues.
The bureau has been requested to reply to the court within 10 days.
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