Rights of concubines tested in Hong Kong court

In the case before the Appeal Court a 90-year-old property tycoon is suing his partner of 46 years over a series of loans he claims he made her, reports The Observer. Concubinage – where men were entitled to have more than one wife – was abolished in 1971 in Hong Kong, although concubines in an established relationship before that are still acknowledged. Lim Por-yen claims he lent around £41m to his former concubine, Koo Siu-ying (66). Now he wants it back, plus an extra £32m in interest charged on the loans. Koo claims the money – used for a Shanghai property project – was a gift, and she was his \'third wife\'. At the centre of the Lim and Koo case is whether a concubine should be treated as a wife, acceptable under Chinese tradition but alien to the former colony\'s British legal system, which is based on monogamous marriage. Full report in The Observer