Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung sued for breach of contract

Cheung faces a lawsuit by her former agent and his company. PHOTO: CECILIA CHEUNG/WEIBO

Just a month after Cecilia Cheung was reported to have sold her luxury property at a reduced price, the Hong Kong actress now faces a lawsuit by her former agent and his company.

The Hong Kong media reported that she was being sued by Mr Yu Yuk Hing and AEG Entertainment Group for breach of contract.

In the court filing on Thursday (July 23), Mr Yu and AEG sought damages from Cheung, 40, for failing to honour her contracts with them.

According to the court documents, Cheung signed an eight-year exclusive global contract with Mr Yu in July 2011.

Under this contract, he agreed to make an advance payment of HK$40 million, the remuneration for four movies.

In May 2012, they signed another contract for two movies, with him making a partial payment of HK$2.76 million upfront.

In July 2014, the actress signed a supplementary contract with AEG to update the 2011 contract.

Mr Yu said in the court filing that Cheung failed to honour the movie contract, and he demanded that she repay the HK$2.76 million (S$492,300), interest, legal fees and other incurred expenses.

AEG also accused her of not honouring their contract and demanded that she return HK$10 million as damages. It also urged her to disclose her finances between May 2015 and July 2019.

Cheung rose to prominence in 1999 after acting in director Stephen Chow's movie King Of Comedy. She has gone on to act in other acclaimed movies such as Fly Me To Polaris (1999), Running On Karma (2003) and Lost In Time (2003), which won her the Best Actress award at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2004.

She has not been active in the movie industry and concentrated on Chinese variety shows after her divorce from actor Nicholas Tse in 2011, with whom she has two sons.

The actress appeared in the 2012 movie Dangerous liaisons, which also starred South Korean actor Jang Dong-gun and Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi, and the 2017 movie Out Of Control.

Cheung gave birth to her third son in November 2018, but has not disclosed who the father is.

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