Hong Kong tycoon charged with bribery Shares in Chinese Estates Holdings were suspended in Hong Kong on Thursday after the company's chairman was charged overnight with bribery and money laundering in Macau, allegations likely to further tarnish the reputation of Hong Kong developers and which could also undermine efforts to improve the image of Macau's business environment. The allegations are the latest twist in a case brought by the Commission Against Corruption of Macau, the anti-graft watchdog, against Ao Man-long, Macau's former secretary of transportation and public works, who was sent to jail for 28 years in 2009 on separate corruption charges. During Mr Ao's latest trial last month, Macau prosecutors accused the former official of accepting US$2.6m in return for helping Chinese Estates Holdings's Joseph Lau and a business partner obtain land near Macau's airport to build a major luxury residential project called La Scala. The court has yet to announce its ruling on Mr Ao's case. Mr Ao denies the allegations. Mr Lau, the six richest man in Hong Kong with a personal fortune of US$6.5bn according to Forbes, denied the allegations when they surfaced during the trial. Chinese Estates Holdings had a market capitalisation of about HK$18.7bn (US$2.4bn) before its trading suspension. It is a local rival of Sun Hung Kai Properties, the Hong Kong group also embroiled in a corruption scandal after the arrests of members of its controlling family. Mr Lau's company operates on a much smaller scale than Sun Hung Kai but he is known to be well-connected in the business community. Macau property prices have soared since the former Portuguese colony liberalised its casino industry in 2002, a fact that has seen developers chasing after the limited supply of land in the territory, which returned to Chinese rule in 1999. Au Kam San, a local legislator, said the trials of Mr Ao highlighted the extent of rampant corruption in Macau, where land sales by the government lacked transparency. I often joke that Macau is a murky pond in which many corrupt fish are hiding. Mr Ao is the only big fish to be caught but there are plenty others," he said. Macau casinos made five times more in annual revenue than the whole of the Las Vegas Strip last year and major US operators Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands have become major investors in the city.