Fortune for a fortune-teller

[Timothy]

HONG KONG (AFP) - Asia's richest woman left her wealth to her fortune-teller in her last known will, Hong Kong media reported Thursday, predicting a costly legal battle to control her multi-billion-dollar estate.
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Nina Wang, who died aged 69 earlier this month and had no children, left a legacy estimated as worth at least 4.2 billion US dollars after transforming her company Chinachem into a real estate empire.

A day after her lavish funeral Wednesday, two wills she allegedly wrote in 2002 and 2006 were published separately in Next Magazine and its sister Apple Daily publication.

The 2002 document said Wang's fortune would go to her charitable trust. But the later version named her personal fortune teller, Chan Chun Chuen, as the beneficiary.

Citing unnamed sources close to her family, Apple Daily said the relatives -- Wang is survived by two younger sisters and a brother as well as in-laws -- and senior aides were unfamiliar with Chan and upset by the new will and were set to take the issue to court.

The sources said the family held "important evidence" that could discredit Chan's will and were confident of winning any case.

Wang's lawyer Jonathan Midgley declined to comment on the reports and her personal assistant could not be reached.

If true, the 2006 document would have been penned two years after Wang was diagnosed with cancer and after she won an eight-year court battle against her father-in-law for control of her late husband Teddy Wang's estate.

He disappeared in 1990 after being kidnapped. His body was never found, and he was declared dead nine years later.

Wang's 2006 will said Chan would be sole beneficiary of her entire estate and would determine the distribution of her fortune.

The document, in English, showed Chan's identification number and date of birth and also said the 47-year-old would use her estate in a "good and proper way," according to Apple Daily.

It added: "My will is established entirely and wholeheartedly for the need and good of my family and loved ones. It is my great appreciation that my will could be announced fairly and righteously as stated."

The paper said the 2006 will was not made before a lawyer and was signed by Wang herself and a witness, an unidentified employee of her company.

Albert Ho, a laywer who has experience in dealing with inheritance cases, said the later document could easily be challenged in court on the basis that Wang, ill from cancer, may have written it under undue influence.

"The court would have a presumption that she was under undue influence," he told AFP.

"If there's evidence someone whom a patient trusts has exploited his or her weakness and ignorance to gain unfair benefits, the court could rule that the will as invalid.

"This is not uncommon and I've done a lot of case like this."

Ho also said the will could be set aside because it does not clearly state whether Chan is definitively the beneficiary or is required to distribute the money.

"In court, this could be voided for uncertainty. I think it would be very difficult to win this case," Ho added.

Meanwhile, Next Magazine published a two-page will provided by a friend of Wang and supposedly written in Chinese in 2002.

It named no beneficiary but indicated her assets should go to a charitable trust she set up with Teddy Wang before he vanished.

The document said the Chinachem Charity Trust should be supervised by the
United Nations secretary-general, the Chinese premier and the leader of Hong Kong.

It said the board should ensure the foundation expands and endures and that it would set up international scholarship awards similar to the Nobel Prize.

Despite the earlier legal tussle over the estate, the will states that the trust should provide care and support for her father-in-law and his wife, as well as to Teddy's siblings and the education of their children.