I have received emails and memos in Hong Kong that begin with 'Re: the above captioned' I had never seen this while living in the UK and wonder what the writers actually mean. Is it referring a title above? Why would they use such a strange expression?
The expression, 'the captioned', is a very old-fashioned expression. Unusually, in Hong Kong, this expression continues to be used by some. However, this does not give a very professional or modern image to the reader. In 'Plain English' we would use 'the above'. 'Plain English' is the modern business writing style. You can see some examples on this website.