High Court win for Chau Chak Wing in defamation suit against Nine, ABC

The ABC and Nine will not be able to appeal elements of a defamation lawsuit brought by a Chinese-Australian billionaire.

Chau Chak Wing is ‘looking forward to the trial in April to restore his previously unblemished reputation’.

The ABC and Nine newspapers will not be able to use the truth defence to defend a defamation lawsuit brought against them for allegedly portraying Chinese-Australian businessman Chau Chak Wing as a spy for the Chinese Communist Party.

The two media outlets’ joint story, which ran in the form of an ABC Four Corners episode in 2017 and an article published shortly after airing, also allegedly accused the billionaire of bribing a UN official.

Mr Chau launched defamation proceedings against the ABC, then Fairfax Media (which had not yet merged with Nine) and journalist Nick McKenzie, less than a month after June 2017 air date.

A Federal Court preliminary decision from August 2018 threw out the media companies’ truth defence entirely, forcing their case to rely on qualified privilege.

This decision was later upheld by the Full Court of the Federal Court, with the ABC and Nine continuing their fight for the right to use the truth defence by lodging an appeal with the High Court.

On Friday, the High Court refused the media outlets’ appeal to use truth as a defence, and ordered them to pay legal costs.

Nine’s lawyers tried to use comments made by Liberal MP Andre Hastie about Dr Chau as part of their defence.

But Dr Chau’s lawyers said it was outlandish to try using comments protected by parliamentary privilege as evidence.

They also argued that allowing the appeal would further delay the actual lawsuit, dragging it out until 2021.

Dr Chau’s solicitor Mark O’Brien said the latest decision now meant six judges had rejected the news outlets’ truth defence.

“Dr Chau looks forward to the trial in April to restore his previously unblemished reputation,” Mr O’Brien said.

An ABC spokesman told The Australian the broadcaster “is disappointed with the decision but will continue to defend its case before the Federal Court.”

“Defamation law reform has been flagged as a priority by Australia’s attorneys-general and the ABC agrees that it is integral to effective public interest journalism.” he said.

Nine newspapers were contacted for comment.

Mr Chau, a prominent political donor, believes the media reports that conveyed the imputations he “betrayed his country, Australia, in order to serve the interests of a foreign power, China, and the Chinese Communist Party by engaging in espionage on their behalf” were defamatory.

Also part of the defamation action is the imputation that Mr Chau paid a $200,000 bribe to the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and that he donated money to Australian political parties “as bribes intended to influence politicians to make decisions” in the interests of the CCP.

The defamation trial is scheduled to begin in the Federal Court on 14 April.

Additional reporting: AAP