Two Australian media companies were ordered on Tuesday (Feb 2) to pay a prominent businessman hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages over a report alleging he was covertly working for China’s Communist Party.

A federal judge ruled that Nine Entertainment and public broadcaster ABC had broken Australia’s strict defamation laws in their 2017 investigative report about Guangdong-born businessman Chau Chak Wing.

The two publications were ordered to pay around US$450,000 and to withdraw reports that Chau worked for Beijing’s United Front Work Department – an organisation that promotes party interests overseas.

They also suggested that Chau bribed local politicians “to advance the interests of the Republic of China” and was one of those involved in a scheme to bribe then-president of the General Assembly of the United Nations John Ashe.

The original full article can be found at channelnewsasia.com

(Photo: AFP/Saeed KHAN)