Bill Moss in $49k defamation win against Fairfax’s Kate McClymont

Bill Moss has won a defamation case against Fairfax journalist Kate McClymont over claims made in her book.

Former Macquarie Bank executive Bill Moss.

Former Macquarie Bank executive Bill Moss has won a defamation case against Fairfax journalist Kate McClymont over claims made in her book.

The NSW Supreme Court yesterday ordered McClymont and Random House, the publisher of He Who Must Be Obeid, pay Mr Moss $49,000 plus legal costs in a settlement reached by consent of both parties.

Mr Moss described McClymont’s work as “evil” and said he was pleased to be vindicated.

“It is simply evil that Kate McClymont and Random House would seek to make money by writing a book that contained information that was false and defamatory,” he said.

Judge Lucy McCallum said in a judgment on August 21 that many other people had been subject to “similar treatment” by McClymont.

“The particular chapter in which Mr Moss is featured is headed The Bagman, evidently a reference to Mr (Eddie) Obeid’s role in an attempt to bribe the NSW Labor government in circumstances where the approval of poker machines was a central requirement of the success of a development proposal backed by Mr Obeid,” she said.

“Many other characters in the book come in for similar treatment to that involved in the discussion of Mr Moss. That is, there is a collection of statements which, while not openly attributing dishonesty or corruption to those persons, convey those notions in the careful language of insinuation and scepticism.”

The first print run of He Who Must Be Obeid was pulped after the authors incorrectly named Chris Brown, the chief executive of an advisory firm and former head of the Tourism and Transport Forum and Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, as a business associate of Mr Obeid’s children.

It was a different Chris Brown.