CANBERRA, Australia — Chinese-Australian billionaire Chau Chak Wing has been was awarded 280,000 Australian dollars ($200,000) in damages by an Australian judge who ruled he was defamed by a media report that insinuated he bribed a former United Nations general assembly president.
The businessman, philanthropist and generous political donor sued Fairfax Media and journalist John Garnaut over an online story published in October 2015.
Federal Court judge Michael Wigney found Friday that the article contained three defamatory meanings — that Chau bribed former U.N. General Assembly president John Ashe, was part of a plot to bribe Ashe and acted in so seriously wrong a manner as to deserve extradition to the United States on criminal charges.
Chau welcomed the decision. The newspapers that published the article say they will appeal.
The Associated Press
