A Hong Kong appellate court has quashed the convictions of 11 men who were found guilty of conspiring to fraudulently obtain building licences from the government more than a decade ago, finding that they did not receive a fair trial because of their lawyers’ incompetence.

In a written judgment delivered on Tuesday, the Court of Appeal ruled that the appellants’ lawyers failed to act in their clients’ best interests by adopting a defence strategy that best suited a developer prosecuted in the same case and a “wider circle” that was concerned with the outcome of the landmark trial in 2015.

“We feel compelled to find [the appellants] have been deprived of a fair trial in what is arguably the worst case of conflict that this court, in its collective experience, has been asked to consider,” the three presiding judges said in their verdict.

The appeal arose from the first criminal trial implicating those involved in the sales and purchases of the so-called ding right, which allows male indigenous villagers to seek permission to build three-storey homes in the New Territories.

While Li appeared to have sold certain plots to the 11 residents, he had covertly acquired their ding right and had them forfeit their interests in the land once they successfully applied for a building licence from the Lands Department.