Hong Kong court rejects Wall Street Journal’s bid to throw out wrongful dismissal suit

A Hong Kong court has rejected the Wall Street Journal’s bid to throw out a wrongful dismissal suit it faces from a former employee who said she was fired for taking up a leadership role at a local press union.

Selina Cheng at the Eastern Magistrates’ Court on March 9, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

On Monday morning, Principal Magistrate David Cheung shot down the American newspaper’s application and ordered the lawsuit, brought by Hong Kong Journalists Association chairperson Selina Cheng, to continue.

“The application by the defence to ask the court to set aside all summonses for a permanent stay of proceedings is refused; I order the trial to continue,” Cheung said at the Eastern Magistrates’ Courts.

Cheng is suing the paper’s parent company, Dow Jones Publishing Co. (Asia) Inc., for firing her in July 2024 because she took up a leadership position at the HKJA.

The publisher pleaded not guilty last month to one count of preventing or deterring an employee from exercising the right to hold office in a trade union, and another count of terminating employment, penalising, or discriminating against an employee for exercising that right.

Lawyers for Dow Jones previously sought a stay of proceedings, saying Cheng’s request for a HK$3 million settlement indicated an “ulterior purpose” of seeking money, which the publisher said amounted to an abuse of the legal system.

The publisher accused her of intentionally concealing her settlement request from Hong Kong’s labour authorities and the court so she would not appear to have an ulterior motive, whereas Cheng denied the claim.

Jimmy Lai’s ruling

On Monday, Magistrate Cheung cited a High Court decision in May 2023 rejecting Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai’s application to halt the national security trial against him.

Cheung said neither party had cited the ruling, which he said laid out principles relating to the stay of proceedings.

Jimmy Lai in 2020. Photo: HKFP.

In 2023, judges in Lai’s case said that a stay of proceedings would be granted if a fair trial for the accused was impossible or if “the circumstances involved an abuse of process which so offend the court’s sense of justice and propriety that the entire prosecution is tainted as an abuse of process.”

Cheung’s mention of the media tycoon, who was sentenced to 20 years in jail last month, drew expressions of surprise from reporters and others in the public gallery.

The magistrate said he would hand down reasons for the decision “in due course.”

Evidence

After Cheung handed down his decision, lawyers for Dow Jones continued to argue that the union head’s evidence was inadmissible.

Senior Counsel Benson Tsoi alleged that the evidence was hearsay, saying that remarks from Cheng’s supervisor, Deborah Ball, about the reporter’s participation in the HKJA leadership race being “problematic” did not necessarily reflect the company’s view.

Selina Cheng, chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, speaks to reporters after being fired from The Wall Street Journal, allegedly over her role in the press union, on July 17, 2024. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

Ball, a Singapore-based Asia editor of the journal, had told Cheng she would speak to her own supervisor, who would then speak to executive-level staff about the matter. There was no evidence that Ball represented the “directing mind or will” of Dow Jones, Tsoi said.

The conversation between Cheng and Ball was recorded on the reporter’s phone. The audio recording and a transcript of the call were saved onto a USB stick and submitted to the court.

“It was clear as day Ball could not make the decision, hence she [had] to go back to her higher supervisor, who then would have to go back to the executive branch in New York,” he said. “This is a broken gap in the evidence that Ms Cheng cannot fill [with] hearsay evidence.”