Don’t ignore decision to clear Hong Kong finance chief Paul Chan and wife of defamation, court told

The lawyer defending finance chief Paul Chan Mo-po and his wife in a defamation case on Wednesday said allegations they made of two schoolchildren cheating at school tests are protected by the law, because the couple genuinely believed them.

Benjamin Yu SC backed the Court of Appeal judgment from 2016, which concluded his clients genuinely believed in what they published and set aside a jury verdict for them to pay HK$230,000 (US$29,500) in damages for defamation.

“We want to emphasise this very careful judgment has gone through a painstaking exercise,” Yu told the Court of Final Appeal. “They came to this conclusion and that’s not something that should be lightly ignored.”

Appeal court made serious errors in clearing Hong Kong finance chief Paul Chan and wife of defamation, lawyer argues

Hong Kong Financial Secretary Chan and Frieda Hui Po-ming were sued by Chinese International School board member Carl Lu and his twins Jonathan and Caitlin Lu following their publication of five emails and a document in December 2011.

The published materials – written by Hui but jointly signed with Chan – concerned rumours from their daughter about her classmates Jonathan and Caitlin cheating at school tests, with their father covering up the matter as he sat on the board of governors.

Hong Kong finance chief Paul Chan and wife win appeal court ruling over defamation claim

A High Court jury found the materials defamatory, with four items “published with malice”. But the Court of Appeal two years ago found the trial judge had seriously misdirected the jury on the question of malice, and ruled that all the defamatory materials were protected by qualified privilege.

The ruling meant that the couple were seen to have had a legal, moral or social duty or interest in publishing the materials and they had done so without malice.