17 May 1991
Mr Venables
Charity Commission St Alban's House 57-60 Haymarket London SW1X 4QX
SIR S K TANG: CHARITABLE TRUST
DIEU
(ON GROH
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071-
A
B
1.
I am writing to you, firstly to thank you for advice which you provided a year and a half ago on Sir S K Tang's gift to HMG! Secondly, to ask again for your views on how the FCO should take this matter forward.
2.
You may recall that Mr MacLeod, Legal Adviser in the FCO, first referred this matter to you in November 1989. I attach a copy of his letter which contains a useful summary of the background to the donation (paras 3-7).
3.
In short, the gift of £1 million from Sir S K Tang has remained in a sterling deposit account in Hong Kong since 1986. The FCO propose to transfer the money to the UK and establish a trust in order to disburse one-third of the accrued interest to the Institute of Cancer Research and the remaining two-thirds of the interest to the British Council to fund scholarships for Hong Kong students to study in the
UK.
4.
As explained in Mr MacLeod's letter, the waters have been somewhat muddied by the fact that disbursements have been made annually from the gift since 1988 to fund the UK/HK Scholarship Scheme. The most up-to-date details from Hong Kong summarising the financial status of the bequest are contained in Mr Lai's letter of 9 January 1990. Since that date, two further deductions from the bequest have been made.
5. In order to begin to sort out the confused legal
status of the bequest, Mr MacLeod wrote to you asking mainly
SUYAOY
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