Disbarred real estate and immigration lawyer Hong Guo has filed for a review of a recent Law Society of BC panel decision to ban her from the legal profession.
Meanwhile, Guo faces the prospect of up to 40 days in jail for contempt of court, with a sentencing hearing date to be determined by a Supreme Court of B.C. judge.
Guo was disbarred by the society on Nov. 17, 2023 after a fourth finding of professional misconduct.
Among the nine citations against Guo since September 2018 — with five of them still unresolved — involved a complex set of business transactions whereby Guo was found to have inserted herself into legal proceedings of her clients from China.
The society noted the discipline panel considered the totality of Guo’s professional misconduct findings in disbarring her.
“Four hearing panels, including the most recent, made wide-range findings of professional misconduct, including misappropriation and other mishandling of trust funds, breaches of trust accounting rules, conflicts of interest, misrepresentations and false representations to clients and the Law Society, failure to supervise staff, and breaches of undertakings and Law Society orders.
“Guo’s discipline history is also replete with concerns about her practice and file management, competence and ability to co-operate with the Law Society,” the society noted in a Nov. 20 statement.
At the time of Guo’s disbarment, she was already suspended for one year after she mishandled trust account cheques; the society found she committed professional misconduct by leaving signed, blank cheques accessible to her bookkeeper.
Lawyer asks society to review its decision
Guo now seeks to have a review hearing, asking for the citation be dismissed or, alternatively, that she be fined rather than disbarred.
In her Dec. 15 submission to the society, Guo asks that the review consider whether or not the panel “misapprehended the evidence or alternatively failed to give weight to relevant factors which supported a conclusion that a disbarment was not warranted…”
Following her submission, Guo also published an titled “Hong Guo: My Side of the Story.”
The article largely focuses on her version of events concerning the alleged $7.5-million theft from her trust account by her bookkeeper, discovered on April 1, 2016.
Guo says the society “publicly accused me of theft and treated me like a criminal.”
However, the citations against her, which are administrative in nature, make no such assertion; rather the society primarily took issue with Guo leaving signed blank trust cheques with her bookkeeper.
Guo states that her bookkeeper and female accomplice (Guo’s former legal assistant) fled to China after Canadian police did not assist her in investigating her allegations; thereafter she stated she endeavoured to investigate and prosecute them in a Chinese court.
Guo’s article links to a translated appeal court decision in Guongdong province indicating the bookkeeper and accomplice were sentenced to 13 years and 15 years in prison, respectively.
As the ruling states — according to Guo’s testimony to Chinese police and the confessions of the bookkeeper and accomplice — much of the money was lost after the accomplice deposited over $7 million at a local Gateway casino and lost it gambling.
Guo’s “victim impact statement” in China claims the Canadian “banks were negligent, allowing this incident to occur.”
According to the translated Chinese court ruling, “staff from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Beijing stated that police cooperation had been suspended, and the completion time for criminal judicial assistance and the progress of obtaining relevant evidence were unclear.”
Nevertheless, the Chinese courts were provided WeChat messages from the bookkeeper and accomplice, as well as Guo’s banking records, and the two convictions were secured on Aug. 25, 2022.
Guo clients investor immigrants
Guo advertised her practice as having been a former legal specialist for the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, the executive branch of the National People’s Congress run by the Chinese Communist Party.
Guo operated Guo Law Corporation in Richmond and had a satellite office in Beijing. She was called to the bar in 1999 in Ontario and moved to Saskatchewan in 2000 where she practiced with a Saskatchewan firm until moving to B.C. in 2005.
Guo says she utilized her Beijing office to connect Chinese nationals to the B.C. Provincial Nominee Program (BCPNP), an immigrant investor arrangement, allowing foreigners to invest in a B.C. company in exchange for residency and ultimately citizenship should they choose. (Guo testified that, in part, the Chinese bank accounts were used to facilitate her Chinese clients’ attempts to move funds out of China in excess of the Chinese currency restrictions.)
Guo’s handling of some BCPNP client matters led the society panel to find a conflict of interest on Guo’s part.
Part of Guo's defence was that the Law Society of BC was discriminating against her because she was an Asian woman and the society did not take into account Chinese business norms. But in dismisisng Guo's claim, the panel asserted that Guo's primary duty was to abide by the professional standards of the B.C. legal system.
The society deposed that it was “extremely challenging” to monitor Guo and that her misconduct occurred while under a supervision order since 2016.
Guo faces sentencing hearing for contempt of court
While under supervision since 2016 Guo committed to several undertakings with the society (among her unproven citations is for practicing law while suspended).
One of those undertakings occurred after Supreme Court of B.C. Justice Gary P. Weatherill found Guo in contempt of court on Oct. 14, 2022 for repeatedly failing to produce court-ordered documents in a civil proceeding against her and her firm.
Then, Guo undertook not to practice law during any term of imprisonment arising from the order.
Weatherill's order called for a jail term of 40 days, however the judge gave Guo more time to produce the documents.
Upon production of the records Weatherill stated the “court will consider modifying the period of Ms. Guo’s incarceration."
Nearly 15 months later, Guo's sentencing hearing remains unscheduled after a lengthy quest to retrieve the documents from hard drives and then review them for privileged information, according to Weatherill's last order on July 24, 2023.
“The hearing of the sentencing portion of the Contempt Order shall take place no later than 90 days after the date of this Order, or such other date as Mr. Justice Weatherill and the parties or their counsel are available,” the order stated.
No date has been scheduled, according to recent court filings.
Glacier Media has reached out to Guo for comment but had not heard back by time of publication.
