Chinese businessman Dr Chau Chak Wing has been awarded $590,000 in a Federal Court judgment that found an ABC Four Corner’s report contained “untrue and seriously defamatory imputations” about alleged espionage, bribery of UN leaders, and links to the Chinese Communist Party.
A judge has shot down a bid by Nine, the ABC and a high-profile journalist to use articles reporting on Dr Chau Chak Wing’s $280,000 defamation victory as evidence mitigating the harm to his reputation from a report at the centre of a separate defamation case.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has dropped its investigation into trading firm Select Vantage, which brought an unsuccessful $10 million defamation suit against the regulator.
ASIC has successfully defended a $10 million defamation case brought by a Canadian trader, with a judge finding any loss experienced was due to his firm’s traders manipulating the market.
The ABC and Fairfax have lost their appeal seeking to revive a truth defense in a defamation case brought by Chinese businessman Dr Chau Chak Wing over a Four Corners program accusing him of espionage and links to the Chinese Communist Party.
A barrister for the ABC and Fairfax has told the Federal Court that an appeal against the dismissal of their truth defence in the Chau Chak Wing defamation case will have “massive ramifications for mass media”.