A leading British arbitrator with years of experience working in Hong Kong could become ensnared in tit-for-tat sanctions between China and the United Kingdom because of his affiliation with sanctioned legal practitioners.

Matthew Gearing QC is scheduled to join Essex Court Chambers in May, according to an announcement on the group’s website. Gearing has been mainly based in Hong Kong since 2008 and was chairperson of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre from 2017 to 2020.

The chambers were included on the list of nine British citizens and four British entities to be penalized by the Chinese government in response to Xinjiang-related sanctions from the UK and other Western countries.

Those on the list are banned from entering mainland China, Hong Kong or Macao and Chinese entities are prohibited from doing business with them.

It is unclear how the sanctions will be applied to individual members of the chambers, which has made a statement clarifying that it “is not a law firm and has no collective or distinct legal identity of any kind.”

The decision to sanction the chambers is “understood to be related to the fact that four members of chambers wrote a legal opinion dated Feb. 8, 2021, concerning the treatment of the Uyghur population in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.”

The opinion concluded there was a “credible case” that acts carried out by the Chinese government amounted to crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide.

Lord Lawrence Collins, a non-permanent British judge on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, also joined the chambers as an arbitrator member in 2012, the group’s website showed.

The judge might encounter difficulties entering Hong Kong in the future or receiving salary payments from the city’s government, said Edward Wong from the legal commentary group Law Lay Dream. Wong added that because the specifics of the Chinese sanctions were unclear, it was unknown whether Lord Collins’ position would be affected.

Senior barrister Alan Leong said the authorities should clearly explain whether the sanction against the chambers affected all lawyers affiliated with it. He added that should this be the case, and if Lord Collins was no longer able to enter Hong Kong, the city would lose a non-permanent judge and this would send an “unfriendly message.”

Apple Daily has contacted the Hong Kong judiciary for comment.

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