FMT:
Guan Eng loses suit against MCA veep and The Star
Judge rules that comment piece on funding for a Chinese school is not defamatory.
Former finance minister Lim Guan Eng was ordered to pay MCA vice-president Tan Teik Cheng RM20,000 and The Star RM30,000 in costs.
GEORGE TOWN: The High Court here has dismissed a defamation suit brought by Lim Guan Eng against MCA vice-president Tan Teik Cheng and Star Media Group, publishers of The Star newspaper.
Justice Quay Chew Soon said an opinion piece Tan wrote in The Star about Lim and funding for a Chinese school last year was fair comment and not defamatory.
Quay ordered Lim to pay Tan RM20,000 and The Star RM30,000 in costs.
Lim’s lawyer, K Simon Murali, said his client will appeal against the decision.
In the suit, Lim alleged that Tan had made a false claim in a comment published by The Star, which had questioned his motives for allocating funding for the school when he was the finance minister.
Tan had told the hearing he wrote the comment piece after Lim had allocated RM4 million to SJK (C) Kuek Ho Yao during the Johor election in 2022.
He said Lim had claimed that MCA and its president, Wee Ka Siong, had done nothing for the school.
Tan also said he had been reliably informed that the school had, in return for the allocation, agreed to incorporate the name of a housing development into its name.
The school is now known as SJK (C) Kuek Ho Yao @ Eco Spring but retains its existing name in the Mandarin language.
Lim denied this claim, saying Tan’s comments were defamatory of him.
Located at UMLand Seri Austin in Johor, the school was named after philanthropist and Chinese community leader, the late Kuek Ho Yao, the brother of tycoon Robert Kuok.
Wee and former MCA president Liow Tiong Lai were among those who attended the school’s groundbreaking ceremony in March 2018.
The court had heard earlier that Kuek’s children did not have any objection to the name change.
GEORGE TOWN: The High Court here has dismissed a defamation suit brought by Lim Guan Eng against MCA vice-president Tan Teik Cheng and Star Media Group, publishers of The Star newspaper.
Justice Quay Chew Soon said an opinion piece Tan wrote in The Star about Lim and funding for a Chinese school last year was fair comment and not defamatory.
Quay ordered Lim to pay Tan RM20,000 and The Star RM30,000 in costs.
Lim’s lawyer, K Simon Murali, said his client will appeal against the decision.
In the suit, Lim alleged that Tan had made a false claim in a comment published by The Star, which had questioned his motives for allocating funding for the school when he was the finance minister.
Tan had told the hearing he wrote the comment piece after Lim had allocated RM4 million to SJK (C) Kuek Ho Yao during the Johor election in 2022.
He said Lim had claimed that MCA and its president, Wee Ka Siong, had done nothing for the school.
Tan also said he had been reliably informed that the school had, in return for the allocation, agreed to incorporate the name of a housing development into its name.
The school is now known as SJK (C) Kuek Ho Yao @ Eco Spring but retains its existing name in the Mandarin language.
Lim denied this claim, saying Tan’s comments were defamatory of him.
Located at UMLand Seri Austin in Johor, the school was named after philanthropist and Chinese community leader, the late Kuek Ho Yao, the brother of tycoon Robert Kuok.
Wee and former MCA president Liow Tiong Lai were among those who attended the school’s groundbreaking ceremony in March 2018.
The court had heard earlier that Kuek’s children did not have any objection to the name change.
Guan Eng facing one trouble after another.
ReplyDeleteHis Pinhorn Road bungalow Feng Shui is probably very bad.