Episode 51 - Mohan Bharwaney

In this episode, we are joined by Senior Counsel Mohan Bharwaney, a retired justice of the High Court who has authored a significant number of landmark judgments in the field of personal injury and medical negligence. Mohan reflects on his upbringing in Hong Kong, early days as a barrister and some of his memorable cases, in conversation with our Senior Partner Colin Cohen. Stay tuned. 

 00:44 Introduction and Guest Background
 02:00 Early Life and Education
 04:18 Law School and Early Career
 09:24 Specialization in Personal Injury Law
 15:20 Notable Cases and Achievements
 19:24 Judicial Career and Law Reform
 29:52 Retirement and Current Activities
 31:27 Reflections on Hong Kong's Future 

Host: Colin Cohen
Director: Niall Donnelly
Producer and VO: Thomas Latter    

Transcript

[00:00:44] Colin: Welcome everyone. My guest today is one of Hong Kong's most prominent and experienced legal professionals.

Mohan Bharwaney is a retired justice of the high court. As well as being a Senior counsel, an accredited arbitrator and mediator, he's a specialist in personal injury, insurance law and medical negligence. And amongst his many notable achievements, he's credited with changing the way that personal injuries litigation is conducted.

He was awarded a Silver Bauhinia star in 2020 for his contribution to the judiciary and community. Mohan, thank you so much for joining us today, and as I always ask my guests, what's been keeping you busy recently?

[00:01:30] Mohan: Well, Colin, let me start by thanking you for that very, very kind introduction. I think in, in those few words, you've just described 50 years of my life and as a legal professional.

And what's been keeping me busy. Well, actually, although I'm retired as a high court judge, I still do a bit of mediation here, and then. I still do a bit of arbitration work in these particular fields. But more than either of them, I have a lot of me time, which I thoroughly enjoy.

[00:02:00] Colin: That's great. So anyway, let's go back in time a little bit. Memories of growing up in Hong Kong. What took you to a career in the law? Can you tell us something about these early days?

[00:02:12] Mohan: You know, I look back and think how lucky I was to have been born in Hong Kong and at the time when Hong Kong was growing exponentially.

You may not know this, but I failed my interview to be admitted into a Catholic primary. School because I couldn't speak a word of English. My first two languages were my Indian language, Hindi, which I spoke with my mother and Cantonese, which my Chinese armor taught me. 

I didn't know what they was telling me. Anyway forget about that failure at, at the very early stage of my studies. But, I ended up in Sir Ellis Kuduri AM School where I received a very good education. It's the school that's very near to the Hong Kong stadium. I received a very good education there and I scored a high enough in those days. There was this territory wide secondary school entrance examination. It was a horror for most students. I did well enough to be admitted into St. Joseph's College. I haven't looked back since then.

My alma mater is celebrating its hundred 50th anniversary this year. Yeah. I mean, I'll be spotting the school tie for more than once on the many occasions that they have ceremonies and events. But I digress. So let me tell you this. I come from a family of traders and businessmen and I did well enough, I scored well enough in my A Levels to be able to get admitted into Hong Kong U. It was very difficult in those days. I think, if I remember correctly, even if you make the the requirements of the university for admission, only about 1 in 10 would get in.

I did well enough to do so and I was, eagerly looking at their prospectus to look for a business related degree, bachelor of Commerce, maybe, or a, bachelor of Business Administrator. None of those were offered, they only offered BA in history, geography. But I did spy, I did see that.

Then a law school had been started and they were offering a legal degree and I thought to myself, Hey, you know laws, not a bad subject to have under your belt if you want to be a businessman, you know? So I went for it. To cut a long story short, after 52 years, I was still doing legal work.

[00:04:18] Colin: So when he went to study a law at Hong Kong U, that was the School of Law. Was Deffet Evans the dean at that.

[00:04:22] Mohan: He was, he, because

[00:04:23] Colin: I went, because he was the dean when I was a lecturer.

And, and did Bob Robero teach you? 

[00:04:28] Mohan: Of course, Bob taught us criminal law. That was his pet subject, but I don't think he did a single criminal case when he joined the bar.

But of course, in the court of final appeal, he's written many judgements on criminal cases. But yes, Daffat Evans was our dean. And, you know what was wonderful in those days was that they had engaged a whole new lot of lecturers, that were newly graduates.

People like Peter Wesley Smith. Yes. Hardly a few years older than we were. Ray Faulkner.

[00:05:00] Colin: Yeah, the late Ray faulkner. Played the drums and honor group down in Wan Chai. 

[00:05:04] Mohan: When I was in law school, I wrote songs about all of them. Ray Faulkner. 

[00:05:08] Colin: You enjoyed doing law? 

[00:05:10] Mohan: Totally.

[00:05:10] Colin: So you did your law degree, defeated the examiners, and then you decided you'd best get professionally qualified. So how you went off to london? 

[00:05:18] Mohan: I was a lucky one because I think some years later. Hong Kong no longer recognized The UK qualifications to join the bar, but I think there was maybe more than a few years, maybe a decade or so later.

But I had three wonderful years at Hong Kong U and and I really wanted to have the experience of studying abroad and getting a broader view of the law. And I'm so glad I did go to London to get my Barrister Qualification 

[00:05:44] Colin: And did he do Pupilage in London?

[00:05:45] Mohan: Yes, I was

[00:05:46] Colin: who were you? Which chambers were in?

[00:05:47] Mohan: I was in Andrew Legett Chambers and, and 

[00:05:50] Colin: very famous famous match. 

[00:05:51] Mohan: Yes, yes. I was a member of Lincoln's Inn and my pupil master was John Jarvis. So, I'll tell you a side story here, right? Last year, Temple Chambers invited justice Briggs from the Supreme Court.

He's the top equity jurist there to come and give us a talk in Hong Kong. So us as Lincoln Inn'ers if I may call it that Frank Star, doreen Ficon, Peter Chung, Eugene Fung and myself, We hosted him to a lunch at the Hong Kong Club and we had a lovely wide ranging conversation and of course the conversation then veered towards our connections with London.

And he asked me who I did my pupilage with, and I said I did it with John Jarvis. And he was totally amazed. He asked me, when were you his pupil? I said, I was there for about six months from. July to December, 1977, he said, oh my goodness, I was his next pupil starting from January, 1978.

So, can you imagine the connections of the common law and the threads we weave? Justice of the Supreme Court is my co pupil, and I only knew that last year or two years ago. It is a small world.

[00:07:00] Colin: You did your pupillage and then you decided to go back to Hong Kong to practice in Hong Kong. 'cause at that stage you could get admitted automatically as a barrister in the late seventies and you started your practice 

[00:07:14] Mohan: That's right. No, I'd always thought that I would be a barrister instead of a solicitor and it was a no no-brainer because I have no relatives in the legal profession. And I thought it would be very difficult for me to find clients and I'd rather chance my luck before a judge, than to go to the marketplace. So, to speak. 

[00:07:33] Colin: Let me tell you the story. I recently gave a lecture 'cause I taught law at Hong Kong

U, and I'm an honorary lecturer and I gave a lecture on with pitfalls of litigation, a couple of months ago for the PCLL students. A couple of hundred odd work in the room and in the end, I asked everyone, right, put up your hands. Those of you in the room who are going to go take pupillage at the bar if you pass your PCLL as opposed to being a solicitor.

Only a handful. Only a handful nowadays who really wants to go to the Bar.

bar 

[00:08:02] Mohan: I think it was also a handful, if I remember correctly. I mean, in those days law school was brutal. We had a class of 40 in year one, and Dard Evans had told us to look to our left and look to the right, and one of us won't be here next year.

At the end of the first year, we were down to 20, we lost 50 and we had repeaters and whatnot. When we did our third year and graduated, we were a class of about 25. And of that 25 we had more barristers in the class of 25 than they usually do.

I think we had four barristers, Kumar, myself, Alice, Mark, and Sammy Lee. Right. And the rest were Solicitors. 

[00:08:40] Colin: Off you went. What type of cases were you doing when you first started, when you were at the coalface 

[00:08:46] Mohan: Early days, we did anything and everything. I would start the week with a loitering case in a magistrate's court, and then maybe the next day head off to the district court to help a landlord recover possession of his protected premises for self use.

And then, oh, that would be a really tough one. Appearing before a master to drum up a defense to save the client from a summary judgment on his dishonest check. And then off to the high court few days before the jury doing a drug trafficking case or a robbery, or even a murder case. We did anything and everything those days.

[00:09:24] Colin: So tell me a little bit, how you developed into your expertise, which is the personal injury work. And you met up and you formed the chambers with Kuma.

Yes. Tell us a little bit about that. 

[00:09:35] Mohan: Yes. Well, I owe my concentration on civil work to Max Lucas.

Because what he did was, was he created the seven year rule 

[00:09:45] Colin: For our listeners, Max Lucas was the director of public prosecutions and worked for the government. And what he was trying to do was to stop all the Australians and

[00:09:54] Mohan: Well, well, no, he, he did something very good for them because in those days, if you qualified in England, of course you had automatic entry into the Hong Kong Bar. But a lot of Crown council were Australian qualified and New Zealand qualified. So he said, look, if you have worked in Hong Kong as a Crown Council 

[00:10:10] Colin: For seven years, then you can go into the 

[00:10:12] Mohan: And when he allowed that to happen, there was a huge migration.

[00:10:16] Colin: Of course, Gary Plowman 

[00:10:18] Mohan: So I was prosecuted by Gary Plowman and I was 

[00:10:21] Colin: and the late Gary Alderdice, and 

[00:10:23] Mohan: Gary, all Kim Longley, all of them. And of course they were so experienced that they got all the defense work. 

[00:10:30] Colin: So you had to find some other work to do.



[00:10:32] Colin: do And I didn't mind, I didn't mind because it was really stressful doing a merger trial when you got less than maybe two years practice under your belt.

[00:10:40] Mohan: I didn't mind that at all. So I started to do more civil, we don't specialize by choice. It's all Ad Hoc. You do a case well, somebody notices you had a good result in this field, and then they'll instruct you to do it again. And within a short period of time, you're doing the same sort of case and before you know it, you're a specialist in it.

And so I started to do more commercial cases, more personal injury cases. And because of personal injury cases, I got involved in advising on disputes relating to legal liability policies, so insurance disputes that was one, a side field that I was specializing in. And the other side feel those medical negligence. I would say those are my four specialities here. 

[00:11:22] Colin: Whilst you were building up the practice with Michael Azaria and with 

[00:11:27] Mohan: Korean Mediaers, not to

[00:11:29] Colin: All of you were, had the reputation of being in the personal injury, medical negligence. So you are either acting for legal aid for the individuals, but on the other side of the coin for the plaintiff's the insurers in respect to that matter.

And it became a very narrow focus.

[00:11:47] Mohan: Right. But something good was taking place in those days and we would in one week work for legal aid plaintiffs and the other week work for insurer defendants.

We did both sides. But nowadays, you're either branded a plaintiff's man or a defendant's man, which it kind of narrows your field. If you are able to work on both sides, you have a much wider range of knowledge in the area.

Yeah. 

[00:12:13] Colin: I, I read somewhere, and it was an interesting, where you gave another interview, you described law as a form of social engineering. Do you remember that? I mean, you may have said that you used those words.

Our listeners will be very interested, what do you mean by that?

[00:12:27] Mohan: I mean, look you need engineers to build bridges and roads that help to take you to places.

You need law to engineer societal behavior so that you can all live harmoniously and peacefully together. I just called it a form of social engineering. You lay down laws and you lay down rules and regulations and not in an arbitrary way, but for the furtherance of the common good of your society.

And that's why they say law is never static, it's dynamic. Because as times change, I mean, look, with the advent of technology, the changes in the law have to try to keep pace. I'll give you a good example. In the old days, the law of contract offer an acceptance. Business was conducted by correspondence.

So it was when you received a letter, that's when the contract is formed, and all those rules were thrown out the window when they started to have telexes and faxes, and now it's WhatsApp. I mean, that's a very good example to show how the law must change and adapt to the times.

[00:13:37] Colin: You had a very good practice following and you became a senior council. Now, is that something you wanted to do. 

[00:13:44] Mohan: Well, you know, actually I have been tapped on the shoulder so many times and I always reframed, but I think I finally bit the bullet. And I'm happy I did. I'm happy I did. As a senior counselor, I could even do more. In the field of personal injuries. For a start, I made chairman of the subcommittee on personal injuries. Let me tell you a bit about that. You know our personal injury list, it is of some vintage now, but actually the first judge to be appointed on the personal injury list was Peter Chung and before Peter Chung.

The judge was not actually recognized in this field is Kaplan. So what Kaplan did he run off to? The Chief Justice? Dennis Robert. 

[00:14:25] Colin: Neil Kaplan.

[00:14:27] Mohan: Yes. Neil Kaplan. Yes, yes, yes. Neil Kaplan was a high court Judge. He went up to Dennis Robin and said, listen, the high court files clogged up with these personal injury cases that never come on, and I wanna grab them and then enlist them before me.

Bang, bang, bang, one after the other. And he started to do that. And he started to give order to this massive cases that really had no direction. And he was actually the precursor to the actual personal injury list that was created where you have a specialist judge in charge of that list. And I'm very proud to say that I was part of the team together with Michael Zorio, Neville c Rui Barreto, that as barristers drafted the first personal injuries practice direction.

Well, of course that was a couple of pages, right in the eighties. It's now grown into a massive volume, which I don't think it should be a massive volume, but there it is. 

[00:15:20] Colin: During your time as a council, Senior Council, one case that you really remember, one case that you really are proud of.

[00:15:27] Mohan: 30 odd years in the law? I have many cases 

Can I pick out three? Yes. Because these, these three. Okay. Very quickly Sue and Eastern Insurance, it concerned a vessel, a Baquentine called the Osprey which went down Typhoon L in

[00:15:44] Colin: yes. in Repulse Bay. Exactly. And it was a training ship. 

[00:15:48] Mohan: Yes, remember. Oh, and they were also, you know helping tourists to go around different parts and really the captain was very naive and, and he thought he should head out to open sea and ride it out in the open seas. Repulse Bay is probably the safest place to be. During Typhoon Ellen. So he went out there and the osprey was sunk and all hands lost except one. There was a Japanese crewman who survived the shock infested waters for about, I don't know, hallucinating in it for about a week or 10 days or more. Anyway on the legal side, claims were made for employees compensation against the insurer who had issued the employees compensation policy, for the vessel. Now the insurance policy had been issued and, and the insured under the policy was a company called Alexon. But it turned out that the crew were employed by another company called Richton. So we said that, Hey, the crew were not employed by this guy. So, only the company that's the insured is covered, not Richton.

And we succeeded before Justice Keith. In the Court of Appeal, we succeeded. We had Cons and Kemster in our favor and Litten dissenting. And this is my only case with the Privy Council, I was led by Neville Thomas in the Privy Council. And we lost before the Privy Council because as we all know, it's very difficult to win cases against vedo 

[00:17:05] Colin: For our listeners, the Privy Council was the highest court in Hong Kong, but located in Downing Street in London.

Number nine, next to number 10. And you had to go there and they sat as if they were in Hong Kong, but in London, of course, now it's the Court of Final Appeal. 

[00:17:21] Mohan: It's the court of Final Appeal. Yes, oh. The Privy council rejected what I thought was a very cogent submission. They said that Richton was the undisclosed principle. Under the policy and we were saying this is a legal liability policy. A legal liability policy is personal to the named insured. We will insure somebody who's safe as houses.

He's acting for a real dangerous maverick. And not letting us know we were not insured. But anyway. You don't win against where those are in office. Okay, let me move on. Another case that I'm really proud of is a case called Hu Shu Chow, and Long Cheung toys limited. So this concerned a fatal accident that took place in China, 

[00:18:04] Colin: Outside Hong Kong. These were the cases where the tourists would go into China 

[00:18:10] Mohan: This was an employee, he was a Hong Kong man employed in Hong Kong to work in China to work in Tung Chung. And he had to travel back and forth. So he had finished his work on a Friday night and the company bus went off as usual, but he had to stay late because of the company's needs. And he took a taxi and involved in a fatal accident, died on the road to Lo Wu. And it's trite law that when you're traveling to and from work, you're not in the course of employment. And that's good reason for that because you're covered by motor vehicle insurance.

So you don't need to be covered by motor vehicle as well as employees compensation insurance when you're traveling. But in China, the cover was not anywhere near as extensive as the cover you get in Hong Kong. So I argued successfully before the Court of Appeal that if the Hong Kong employee is employed to work in China when he's traveling to and from Hong Kong and China, he should be considered to be in the course of his employment.

And they agreed. So that's a bit of social justice, isn't it?

[00:19:14] Colin: It is, and also that led into the typhoon cases whereby if you are traveling to work and you are told to go back and forth, you would be covered as well.

Anyway. You then decide to become a high court judge now. Tell me about that. What made you sort of give up a nice life as a senior council earning, I would think a lot more and go into sort of dispense justice. Well, what happened? 

[00:19:38] Mohan: Well, we had had to take a pay cut, right? For that. But I'm a bit of a traditionalist and I always thought that really the proper way of career progression is to end your career on the bench. that was one. Aspect of my thinking that, prompted me. The other was the fact that I thought the personal injury list was in a dire state.

And I just wanted to get in there and, and try to reform and clarify all those gray areas. And I think in my nine years as a personal injuries judge, I have managed to do that. And I'm very proud of the fact that, four and five years after my retirement, my cases are still being cited as the leading precedent on any particular area of law.

[00:20:29] Colin: And in your time, you were basically doing personal injury cases. 

[00:20:34] Mohan: I was not only the personally injury judge, I was in charge of the commercial list for over two years. And to have those two huge portfolios was very, very taxing. But as a Barrister, I did a lot of commercial work as well. So, yeah.

[00:20:46] Colin: As a judge. Did you enjoy yourself? Sometimes they say as a single judge is a little bit lonely. Writing judgments. Were you keeping up with everything? 

[00:20:56] Mohan: I'm too much of a social animal to be lonely. No. , we have a very collegiate sense of togetherness in the high court amongst the judges. But I never left my friendships behind in the Bar or in the Solicitor's world. So obviously I'm not gonna whine and dine with a barrister who's appearing before me. So, I mean, if anybody was having a case before me, I would just keep away and so would they, which was the proper decorum at that time. But if the case is finished and I handed down a judgment against my good friend, then I'll have dinner with them and let them curse me for doing that. 

The law is the law. And we looked at the evidence objectively and, when we give our decision, it doesn't matter who appears with you. 

[00:21:39] Colin: Yeah. no, I'm interested in which you as a judge, but I wanna talk a little bit about law reform. I know that's something close to your heart and there's one area which is just to give a, put it into some form of context. I mean, in personal injury actions, when someone unfortunately is very seriously injured. The main areas of heads of damages, first of all is the pain and suffering. And there's a set sum of money, which is a lot lower in Hong Kong than it is in the UK or the USA, considerably lower. Sometimes my clients say to me, well, why is it so little money just for a loss eye here? But the other area. Which is very interesting, is those people who have been very fairly well off loss of earnings and the ability to ensure that they get an award, which sort of, compensates the family for what he would have or she have earned over a period of time.

Let's say working out, you have 10 years left and multipliers and it's a difficult calculation. And to ensure that justice is done. And do you award a lump sum or periodical payments? Now you were on the law reform commission and you really came out and you published a report being published even quite recently. 

[00:22:48] Mohan: It was I think, published January, 2023. Yeah, that was like two years ago.

And I understand that the attorney general's chambers has a section of the law costs. The section of the drafting, the drafting sections already started to do work on drafting a bill, which, which gives effects to our recommendations. It's a thorny subject. It's trying to assess the award for future loss, in personal injury cases. Past loss is easy. You have receipts, exactly. And if the expenses are reasonably incurred, you get paid in full. But how do you assess future loss, for example, you know.

Say you have a man who would've worked till 65, but at the age of 45 he gets injured and can no longer work. So he suffers. He has suffered 20 year loss of future earnings. I mean, would you award him the equivalent of 20 years of earnings? Now, if you do, you would be overcompensating him because our law requires us To ensure finality and, and it requires us to make a lump sum award, not periodical payments awards, but a lump sum award for our future loss. So if you give him 20 years earnings for his 20 year future loss. You're giving him too much. Why? Because the lump sum that he will receive from court as a result of the court judgment can be invested and can earn interest and it can earn dividends.

But there's another factor which must be taken into account. He suffers loss right after trial for the next month's salary, but his loss in 20 years time won't be suffered until 20 years later. So you have to discount for the accelerated receipt of a future loss. So these are the factors that led the courts to pick multipliers, which were less than the actual period of future loss.

And we had a system whereby we would look at past cases. To see what is the multiplier for a man or a woman in that position and what was awarded to him for his future loss. And we would adopt similar multipliers. What I did in what I would call my landmark case Chan Pak Ting, was I said, it's time to give up this old fashioned system, and it's time to allow actuarial evidence to be admitted because. Actuaries actually do very, good mathematical calculations to do this discounting work. And not only that, they also have regard to life tables to look at life expectancy and to give a further discount for the risk of earlier death.

[00:25:37] Colin: discount. Yes, and also you've got in with mandatory Providence funds savings, that has all increased. Investment in the market, bitcoin. Actually no. As a case, which I'm advising on is someone who unfortunately, passed and there's negligence and he was a whiz kid in the Bitcoin.

Now you try calculating what for loss of earnings on the potential cyber currency, Bitcoin and et cetera. It is not easy.

[00:26:06] Mohan: Well, I'm very happy to know that I'm now a retired judge and your case will not come before me. I wouldn't have a clue how to do it, but, but really, we have a lot of problems with having a lump sum award. And what we advocate in the law reform report that we had is to empower the courts to make periodical payments, especially in cases very, very substantial amount of money is involved.

See, if you allow for periodical payment orders to be made, you eliminate the uncertainty of predicting future inflation and in your Bitcoin case predicting the, future market for Bitcoins, for example. But you also, eliminate the uncertainty, perhaps a greater uncertainty of life expectancy.

So you have a catastrophic injury, and the plaintiff's expert will say the injured plaintiff will live another 10 years. The defendant's expert's gonna say he's not gonna live more than two years, and the court has to make a decision on how long he's going to live.

And suppose the court comes down the middle and says he's going to live five or six years. But what if he actually lives 10 years? The lump sum you award would have been used up and he would become a burden on society. What if he gets pneumonia the next day and suddenly passes away?

Then the beneficiaries of his estate will inherit a windfall of damages, which are supposed to be taken care of him. Periodical payment orders work very well. They make the insurer pay an annual sum. Sufficient to supply the needs of the injured plaintiff for as long as he lives. So if he dies the next year, the payments stop.

He lives for 20 years more. The payments continue. And, and not only that, but the payments every year is either increased or decreased depending on inflation or deflation. So you have a very nice system and after a consultation exercise, we got substantial support to amend our law, to permit this, at least for catastrophic cases, because they are the ones that generate these huge amounts.

But the other part of the report was that we should have an authority set up to review the discount rate. And we had unanimous support for that and quite right because it should not be a burden on one or two litigants to change the discount rate.

It's a societal problem.

[00:28:45] Colin: Yes. Well, I just hope all of that is gonna come into place. Now you are on the judiciary for 11 years

[00:28:52] Mohan: Yes. 

[00:28:52] Colin: You then retired.

And you could have carried on. 

[00:28:55] Mohan: Well, actually I was supposed to retire at age 65 and, when I was coming close, chief judge said, well, would I do another two years?

So went off to my wife and she begrudgingly agreed, and the thing is like, I just can't myself write a judgment and clear up a gray area. The case has to come before me with that issue in it for me to write a judgment on and so she grudgingly said, yeah, okay.

Two more years till 67. And, and, and, and in those two years, I was able to clarify. I had a checklist of to-do list and all these areas to clarify, and I managed to have those cases come before me. So come two years later, the law changed to allow me to work till 70. And then, so I went off to the wife again.

I said, what do you think? You know? She said, no way. You've already worked for, God knows, more than 44 years by then. And so I happily listened to her and I have no regrets. 

But but 

[00:29:52] Colin: you are doing a little bit, I mean, you're doing mediations right now and arbitration, so you. 

[00:29:56] Mohan: I don't think one should ever retire. 

[00:29:57] Colin: No. Oh, so you're not retired. So you are semi-retired. Yes. So you did a mediation for my firm. You've done any mediations for other firms and personal injury cases. Do you enjoy the mediation arena?

[00:30:07] Mohan: I do, and being a senior judge, I tend to be selected for the more difficult cases. Yes. We get some really novel situations. No names mentioned, but one of the cases I did recently was a really difficult one.

A senior banker traveled a lot for her bank and came down with DVT. Yeah. And so she, she sued the bank causing her DVT and now that's quite a novel situation and a case like that really makes you scratch your head. 

[00:30:38] Colin: So you're enjoying life at the moment. so. Hobbies, anything you do, which is interesting, I know you like a little bit where your wife likes cricket.

I

[00:30:45] Mohan: Well, yeah. Well, she was a, a co-owner of of the Kowloon Cantons, which won twice with the T 20 blitz, and every year we would ask Jeffrey Ma, who's a cricket lover, par excellence to come to our dinner and then give us a speech.

And, he would floor everybody with his encyclopedic knowledge of cricket. Yes, yes. Wide range of hobbies. Traveling, but possibly less than before. I think as one grows older, the wanderlust reduces a bit, but I must say in all the travels of the world I found very, very wonderful places.

But nothing, nothing like 

[00:31:22] Colin: So Hong Kong is 

[00:31:23] Mohan: Hong Kong. Totally, totally home.

Home, sweet home, I would say

[00:31:27] Colin: Exactly. Oh, look, Hong Kong's gone through challenging times.

Yes. We all know the big elephant in the room. We don't need to talk about it, but your views the future of Hong Kong. I'm optimistic. I've been here 45 years nearly.

[00:31:39] Mohan: Yes. And I've been here double of that.

Yeah. Well, no, not double, but almost. Hong Kong's always had ups and downs, you know. After the war and embargo and Chinese goods because Hong Kong was, entrepreneur between China and the rest of the world. And there was an embargo. And, and they've had ups and downs many, many times in the last 50, 60 years.

And they've always come up tops. And I've no doubt that Hong Kong's gonna thrive, is gonna thrive up to and beyond 2047.

[00:32:08] Colin: Yes. I mean I was in Australia recently for the Formula One and I kept on explaining to all the Aussies there, ah, hey, it's not safe for you in Hong Kong. I said, of course it's safe. And you've gotta sort of knock sense into people and to realize that this, if you get off and visit Hong Kong, it's the place we will love and to be with. Anyway, so you are optimistic Hong Kong's future. 

Absolutely. That's great. Mohan, it's been an honor a privilege chatting with you. Thanks so much for joining us on Law & More.

[00:32:37] Mohan: Colin, thank you for inviting me. I've had a thoroughly good time, this afternoon chatting about all these things.