Sales manager wins on commission but loses her bonus claim in HK court
Deputy District Judge Alan Ng ruled on 10 August 2026 that a former sales manager was owed unpaid commission but had overclaimed her bonus.
The dispute, heard in the District Court under DCCJ 3021/2022, centred on a commission and bonus scheme written into the employee's 2016 appointment letter with a Hong Kong glass trading company. The employee, hired as senior sales manager, resigned with effect from 1 April 2022, telling her employer that it had stalled payment of commission and bonus for 2020 and 2021.
She first brought a claim to the Labour Tribunal for about HK$1.75 million covering annual leave, mobile phone reimbursement, commission and bonus. The leave and reimbursement portion, worth HK$60,351.12, was settled by consent order in July 2022. The commission and bonus claims, which the parties could not agree, were transferred to the District Court for trial.
At trial the employee sought roughly HK$1.39 million and RMB108,527 in outstanding commission, plus about HK$972,000 and RMB63,516 in bonus. The employer denied owing either sum and counterclaimed close to HK$440,000, alleging it had overpaid both.
The appointment letter set commission at ten percent of the gross profit of each sale, but the judge found this figure was only quantification. The separate condition for payment was spelled out in the letter itself: “All commissions are paid when full payment is received.” That meant the employee could only recover commission for sales the employer had actually been paid for by the time she left, not for everything she had invoiced.
Working from her own commission table, the court awarded her HK$922,283.92 and RMB45,016.95, far short of her claim. The employer's counterclaim over alleged commission overpayment failed entirely: the judge found a costing error meant the company had undercounted what it owed, not overpaid.
Bonus turned on a stricter test: the employee had to show she met her annual sales target and that the company received full payment up to that target within the same year. The court found her own bonus tracking document had no supporting paperwork behind it, while the company's ERP-generated bonus summaries, once invoices tied to cancelled orders, unpaid balances and post-resignation payments were stripped out, showed she had missed her targets in the two most recent years and in an earlier year she had claimed. Her bonus claims for those years were dismissed.
The judge also rejected her separate argument that a contract template from a previous employer should shape how her commission and bonus terms were read, since that document was never disclosed and had no clear bearing on this contract. He dismissed it in three words: “This is a red herring.”
On a bonus of HK$327,284.28 already paid for earlier years, the court found the employee had only actually hit her target in one of those years, so the company had overpaid her by HK$191,455.76. Its counterclaim on that point succeeded.
Judgment was entered for the employee for HK$922,283.92 and RMB45,016.95, with interest from 7 April 2022, and for the company for HK$191,455.76, with interest running from when it filed its counterclaim. Costs on each claim were split evenly between the parties, pending any application to vary.
The judgment attributes the outcome to one point: whether the company had actually received payment for the specific sales and annual targets in dispute, not the amounts either side had claimed.
