Chau Chak Wing: Billionaire businessman wins defamation case against ABC, Fairfax Media

The ABC and Nine say a judge’s decision to award $590k to a Chinese-Australian billionaire businessman will have a “chilling effect” on media freedom.

Billionaire Chau Chak Wing will walk away with $590,000 damages after winning a defamation case over a Four Corners episode he said painted him as a Chinese spy. Picture: AAP Image/Chris Pavlich

The ABC and Nine say a judge’s decision to award billionaire Chau Chak Wing $590,000 in a defamation case will have a “chilling effect” on media freedom in Australia.

The Chinese-Australian philanthropist and political donor will walk away with the sum and a sense of vindication after winning a lawsuit against the two media companies over a Four Corners episode in June 2017.

The program, titled “Power and Influence”, investigated Chinese interference in Australian politics.

Dr Chau sued the ABC and Fairfax Media, now owned by Nine, alleging the program painted him as a corrupt Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spy who paid a bribe to a UN official.

Federal Court Justice Steven Rares largely ruled in Dr Chau’s favour on Tuesday morning.

He found the program defamed Dr Chau by suggesting he engaged in secret lobbying for an arm of the CCP, made huge political donations as bribes to influence pro-China policies, and paid a $200,000 bribe to former United Nations General Assembly president John Ashe.

Businessman Chau Chak Wing will walk away with $590k and a sense of vindication after winning a lawsuit against the two media companies over a Four Corners episode in June 2017. Picture: AAP Image/Chris Pavlich

But the judge said the program did not suggest Dr Chau, who has been an Australian citizen since 1999, had “betrayed his country” to spy for the CCP, nor that he knew associate Sheri Yan was a spy.

The ABC and Nine hit out at being forced to defend these allegations only for the judge to find they were not contained in the program.

“This case has again starkly demonstrated fundamental problems with Australian defamation law and pre-trial procedures being heavily skewed in favour of a plaintiff,” the companies said in a statement.

They urged state and territory parliaments to reform defamation laws as a matter of urgency.

Dr Chau told the court at trial he had been in “agony” after hearing about the broadcast.

“I couldn’t sleep for days, and I couldn’t eat well for days, and my blood pressure went very high, and I had to make a number of visits to the doctor, and I was in breakdown, and I lost many weight,” he said.

Justice Rares said it was “no small thing” for Four Corners to direct such serious accusations at Dr Chau, noting they were false “on the evidence before me”.

“For a man who mixed with prime ministers and provincial vice-governors, leading bankers and businessmen to be publicly and falsely accused of bribery of the president of the General Assembly of the United Nations and of Australian political parties and to be a member of a clandestine arm of the Chinese Communist Party was calculated to inflict on Dr Chau, as I found it did, personal and public humiliation and disgrace,” he said.

“The imputations struck at the core of Dr Chau’s previously high reputation for integrity, philanthropy and the promotion of a positive relationship between Australia, of which he was a citizen, and China.”

Dr Chau has previously won a defamation case against Fairfax Media and settled a defamation case against News Corp publisher Nationwide News.

Originally published as Chau Chak Wing: Billionaire businessman wins defamation case against ABC, Fairfax Media