Josh Baker – zh – Prince’s Chambers

大律师和仲裁员

贝克

大律师

Year of Call

2019

Barrister, Hong Kong

Academic

2018

PCLL, University of Hong Kong

2016

LLM (Distinction, First in Year), University of Hong Kong

2014

MA, University of Cambridge

Practice profile

Josh was called to the Bar in 2019 having worked in solicitors’ firms for seven years. He practices in commercial, public and family law.

Josh graduated first in his year from the LLM in Human Rights at the University of Hong Kong in 2016. He read law as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge.

He acts in a wide range of commercial disputes and is comfortable handling heavy work as part of a team as well on urgent and ex parte applications. He has a particular knowledge of civil fraud, asset tracing and recently has been instructed in numerous cryptocurrency disputes. He often advises in the banking and financial services context. He frequently advises on strategy and the preparation of evidence. Josh is building a commercial arbitration practice. He is the author of the new chapter on agency in Chitty on Contracts: Hong Kong Specific Contracts and a contributor to the White Book.

In public law, Josh acts for individuals, NGOs, corporates and public authorities, and often advises on matters with a civil liberties and fundamental rights dimension and where international law is material. He has been ranked as a Public Law Leading Junior by Legal 500 since 2023. He is very familiar with discrimination law in the private and public law contexts, immigration, asylum claims and administrative detention.

Josh works in all areas of family law focusing on matrimonial finance including complex cross border separations. He also appears in private law children’s matters and child protection applications at public law. He is co-author of Atkins’ Court Forms in family law and a contributor to Duxbury, Etc. In March 2019 he served as marshall to Her Honour Judge S D Melloy.

Josh serves on the Constitutional Affairs and Human Rights Committee and the Legal Aid Reform Committee of the Bar Association.

What the directories say

‘Josh is insightful, diligent and well-prepared in his submissions. He is smooth in delivery and handles questions from the bench with grace’ Legal 500 2026

‘He works so hard on things. He’s got a good aggressive streak and is a brilliant lawyer’ Chambers & Partners 2026

‘He can be very persuasive’ Chambers & Partners 2026

‘He’s been incredibly helpful and is very prepared to go through onerous documents. He picks up on things adjudicators forgot to go through and helps us win arguments’ Chambers & Partners 2026

‘Josh … consistently delivers an exceptional level of client service, setting a benchmark for professionalism, responsiveness and strategic insight in administrative and public law’ Chambers & Partners 2026

‘Josh will really burrow into a legal issue and find novel and compelling arguments. He is very easy to work with and clients always appreciate his hard work, detail oriented approach and dedication’ Chambers & Partners 2025

‘Josh is very easy to work with, makes himself available, has good attention to detail and the ability to think outside the box’ Chambers & Partners 2025

Selected work

Commercial practice

Techteryx Ltd v First Digital Trust Company Ltd & Ors [2025] HKCFI 4023. Applications for appointment of receivers and proprietary injunctions in US$500m investment fraud claim.

Re Goldstone Holdings Limited [2024] HKCFI 3598. Application to strike out winding up petition.

HKIAC arbitration (2023). Counsel for Respondents in $88m claim for breaches of Series C financing agreement and for asset stripping. Hong Kong and PRC law. Three-member panel. Five-day trial. Interim measures.

Mark Richard Charles Sutherland v CRB (a firm) [2023] 1 HKLRD 1. Application for orders to tax solicitor / client bills. Questions of retainer by conduct and whether bills ‘final’ in nature. High Court guidance for applications to tax solicitor / client bills.

HKIAC arbitration (2022). Counsel for Claimants in $29m claim for breach of guarantees in $200m product distribution agreements. Hong Kong and Singapore law.

Hydrotech Waterproofing Solutions v Shun Yuen Construction [2023] 2 HKLRD 173. Non-party costs order against third party. [2022] HKCFI 2785. Three-day trial of $16.6m contract claims. Questions of the formation of contracts across sub-contracting relationships.

KH Foundations v Chun Yip Construction Co Ltd [2020] HKCFI 3019. Applications for production of documents said to be commercially sensitive under O.24 r.11 and further and better particular

Public law and commercial judicial review

So Tsz Man v Director of Immigration [2026] 1 HKC 496. Foreign national mother’s outside policy application to reside in Hong Kong to care for permanent resident child following premature death of father. Whether refusal Wednesbury unreasonable. Whether Director obliged to consider BOR 3 risks facing child on relocation to Indonesia anticipated on removal of mother.

TM v Torture Claims Appeal Board [2023] HKCFI 2662. Iranian refugee claim. Whether wrong to exclude evidence of risk given at previous hearing, not repeated at subsequent hearing on grounds that it could re-traumatise.

Harjang Singh v Secretary for Security & Anor [2022] 4 HKLRD 99, [2022] 5 HKC 718 (CA). Leading authority on the principles constraining administrative detention for the purposes of removal from Hong Kong. Discussion of time taken pursuing non-refoulement claims; fresh justifications discerned by the court; re-offending risk; how a ‘reasonable period’ is to be specified; impact on family members; appeals in a Hardial Singh cases.

AB v X & Ors [2021] 1 HKLRD 1259, [2022] 2 HKC 604. Application to set aside order effecting letter of request issued by administrative judge of the United States Federal Board of Reserve, in aid of $8m claim for ‘civil monetary penalty’. Whether the Board was a ‘court or tribunal’ and whether the US proceedings were ‘civil proceedings’, such that the Hong Kong court had jurisdiction.

Gurinder Preet Singh & Anor v TCAB [2022] HKCA 587. Appeal for leave to apply for judicial review of Board’s non-refoulement decision. Questions of correct approach to internal relocation, and use of outdated COI.

Safder Tehseen v Secretary for Security & Anor [2022] 6 HKC 484. Application of Hardial Singh / Harjang Singh principles where individual on recognizance was arrested but not charged.

Chairman of the Southern District Council v Secretary of the Southern District Council [2021] 5 HKLRD 52, [2022] 1 HKC 213, [2021] HKCFI 500, [2021] HKCFI 1920. Challenge to decision not to provide secretarial services in respect of meeting agenda items said to be ultra vires the Council’s statutory powers.

Azubuine Solomon Kingsley v TCAB / NRCPO [2021] HKCA 1940, [2022] HKCA 1364. Admission of new evidence in non-refoulement challenge appeal. Whether cognitive impairment responsible for evidence ruled inadmissible. Whether credibility assessment lawful.

Riaz Hussain & Anor v Permanent Secretary for Security [2021] HKCA 1017. Appeal in challenge to refusal to suspend or rescind deportation order. Whether seriousness of offence and rehabilitation ‘mandatory’ considerations. Whether BL31 right to enter and remain engaged where deportation order invalidates permission to remain.

Y v Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption [2020] 4 HKC 206. Judicial review of ICAC warrant to enter and search premises granted under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance. Whether warrant defective for insufficient specificity.

He Wei v Director of Immigration [2020] 2 HKC 648. Judicial review of prospective investment visa decision. Whether Director’s valuation of company rational; whether JR premature / should be permitted.

Matrimonial finance and family practice

EBS v NTCD [2024] 2 HKLRD 881 (CA). Appeal of ancillary relief judgment over assets of $193m. Whether compensation available to wife for sacrifice of investment banking career. Mesne profits being rental income or investment return on property occupied by wife in breach of order for sale.

MS v SPC [2024] HKFC 132. Xydhias type applications by both parties on eve of trial of ancillary claims over $90m. Whether sufficient agreement reached to dispose of trial.

ALDL v FTFC & Anor [2024] HKFC 13, [2024] HKFC 70. Trials over fourteen days of preliminary issues viz beneficial ownership of landed properties and ancillary relief claims involving alleged assets of $96m. [2023] HKFC 6. Application for further / top up litigation funding. Questions of the scope of previous award, the status of costs already ordered to be taxed and effect of delay. [2025] HKFC 125. Variation of ancillary relief-costs order where sanctioned offer not accepted.

YSG (YX) v LYAG [2022] HKFC 114. Nine-day trial of ancillary relief claim over assets of $248m.

BBM v BKR [2022] HKFC 114. Four-day trial of permanent relocation application following abduction from Hong Kong to the United States.

Singh v Adita [2021] HKCA 469. Procedure to set aside decree nisi on grounds of fraud, misrepresentation and non-service.

SG v GDV [2021] HKFC 163. Resisting applications for MPS and children’s maintenance on grounds of collateral High Court proceedings and fairness of offer.

Publications

Agency (chapter 1) in Chitty on Contracts: Hong Kong Specific Contracts (6th ed, 2019; 7th ed 2022)

Halsbury’s Hong Kong, Misrepresentation and Fraud (2022)
Contributor, Hong Kong Civil Procedure 2020-2023
Butterworths Hong Kong Banking Law Handbook (5th ed, 2020; 6th ed 2023)
Contributor, Duxbury, Etc: Practical Guide to Hong Kong Family Law and Courts (2019-2023)
Novelty and Orthodoxy: 2018 in Civil Justice, Special Release to Hong Kong Civil Procedure 2020 misappropriated in an email and invoice fraud.
Family Law in Atkins’ Court Forms Hong Kong (2019 reissue) Eastern and Western perspectives of surrogacy: out with the old, in with the best interests? [2016] 4 International Family Law Journal