Richard Li led contentious $2 billion buyout of Hong Kong Telecom Company PCCW has at last met a happy ending as the court on Monday passed the judgment in its favor and approved the take over, that was halted following charges of vote-rigging slapped by the Securities and Futures Commission.

The court decision lifted the log jam on the company’s plans to take fixed-line carrier PCCW Ltd. private and delist from the stock exchange.

The country’s SFC had earlier called for probe and sought for termination of the buy out plan and maintained that the shareholder votes were manipulated after about a half a million PCCW shares were doled out to employees of Fortis Insurance Company (Asia) Ltd in a bid to influence votes in favor of the deal.

However, Hong Kong court, led by Judge Susan Kwan was not convinced and approved the buyout citing that there weren’t sufficient evidences to prove the regulator’s case.

The commission, while not opposed to the deal itself, was challenging a part of the judge'''s decision backing a practice known as vote-splitting that can swing shareholder polls, the watchdog's chief executive Martin Wheatley said.

PCCW and its partners on the other hand denied any efforts to illegally influence the vote, with its attorney calling the shares "a gift given with no strings attached" and criticizing the regulator's probe as "biased, improper and incomplete."