Hung Yuen Chan Robert v Sing Tao Ltd

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Hung Yuen Chan Robert vSing Tao Ltd

• By Simon Leung
• JMSC6022 Media Law

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Background Information

• Sing Tao Daily published an article on 15
  September 1994, claimed that the Paraguay
  Honorary Consult(s), Mr. Chan, sacked again in
  connection with selling of passports.
• On the day that the article was published, a
  letter before action was sent by the plaintiffs
  solicitors seeking, an apology.

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T.B.C.

• A writ was issued on 20 September 1994 followed
  by a statement of claim on 20 October 1994.
• It complained the article under the heading
  referred and was understood to refer to the
  plaintiff and was highly defamatory.

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T.B.C.

• Finally, the case went to the High Court at July
  1996.
• Barrister, Mr Yu QC, for Mr Chan, asked for a
  minimum ballpark figure of 2.5 million and
  said there was no element of gold digging in
  this case.
• Indeed, Mr Yu said his client had been willing to
  settle for a nominal amount of money and apology
  in the newspaper, but he was turned down.

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T.B.C.

• Mr Yu pointed out that the plaintiff has been
  injured his character, credit and reputation, and
  has suffered loss and damage.

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Defendants Apology

• On behalf of his clients, Mr Whitehead apologised
  to the plaintiff in open court for the distress
  and embarrassment that the article had caused the
  plaintiff.
• The suggestions made in the article and
  complained of in the statement-of-claim are
  totally unfounded and were never intended and
  that his clients were glad to say so publicly.

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T.B.C.

• Counsel for the defendants accepted this apology
  was very late but he hoped that it would in some
  way be comforting to the plaintiff that the
  defendants are acknowledging that he had been
  wronged by the article and apologising for it.

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What the Judge Said

• In Chan Kwong Wai v Lau Sau King (1963), , an
  apology was tendered by counsel for the
  defendants at the beginning of the trial. The
  plaintiff complained about the libel seven months
  after its publication but the defendants did not
  make an apology for three months and there was no
  admission of the untruth of the article.

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T.B.C.

• Huggins J (1963), thought it was so late as to be
  practically worthless especially when one
  considered when one considered the conduct of the
  defendants up to that time.

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T.B.C.

• An apology can be a sincere expression of regret
  or mere admission of guilt. I am not satisfied
  that what the defendants have done in this case.
• I am not certainly not persuaded that the damages
  should be reduced on account of what the
  defendants have now seen fit to say.

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T.B.C.

• Ms Justice Doreen Le Pichon adopt that sentiment
  in relation to the present case.

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Plaintiffs Evidence

• Singtao has a special education section.
  Unfortunately, the plaintiff is the legal advisor
  of the Hong Kong Council of Education. Because of
  its education section, Singtao Daily is popular
  within the education field.

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T.B.C.

• Indeed, the plaintiff also had no contact with
  the Singtao Daily.
• The part of the article that reported a
  conversation between Mr SS Chan and the
  Standard, appeared on Singtao, it being accepted
  the Chinese article was based on the Hong Kong
  Standard article.

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Damages

• There was suggestion that the plaintiff did not
  suffer any damage, especially he became a
  China-appoint attesting officer in June 1995. It
  seemed the Singtaos 1994 report did not harm the
  plaintiffs reputation and cause any defamation.
• Ms Justice Doreen Le Pichon did not agree.

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T.B.C.

• The fact that the appointments were made after
  the date of libel does not mean that the
  plaintiff did not suffer any damage.
• Rather it goes to show that the plaintiff is a
  man of repute and there is in fact no way of
  knowing what else he could have achieved.
• Ms Justice Doreen Le Pichon was inclined to agree.

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T.B.C.

• Lets take a simple example, poor John Dole was
  dumped by his girl friend at 1994, even he had a
  new girl friend at 1995, it did not mean what
  happened at 94 not hurting him anymore.

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Judgement

• Ms Justice Doreen Le Pichon pointed out Singtao
  is a well-respected Chinese newspaper and has a
  larger circulation (around 65,000 copies) than
  its English counterpart (around 52,000 copies)
  and it is reasonable that there may be clients,
  potential clients to be found amongst the
  readership of Singtao than the Standard.

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T.B.C.

• The defendant also accepted that no one from the
  newspaper ever spoke to the plaintiff prior to
  publication.
• The defendants have acted wholly irresponsibly
  and without the last regard for the truth and
  accuracy of the article when it was published.

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T.B.C.

• When the defendants did tender an apology, that
  apology lacked sincerity and failed to attract
  any meaningful publicity. Its effect is clearly
  not the same as a full apology inserted in the
  newspaper.
• To add insult, the defendants described the
  plaintiffs prosecution of this action as an
  exercise in gold-digging.

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T.B.C.

• Ms Justice Doreen Le Pichon agreed Hugginss 1963
  observations that
• those who publish this type of matter do so at
  their peril and should not be surprised if those
  expect more than an apology.

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T.B.C.

• An apology could be a sincere expression of
  regret or mere admission of guilt. The court was
  not satisfied that what the defendants had done.
• The fact that the plaintiff became a
  China-appointed attesting officer did not mean
  that he did not suffer any damage.

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T.B.C.

• Singtao was a well-respected and established
  Chinese newspaper and had a larger circulation
  than its English counterpart.
• However, the newspaper impugned the integrity of
  a professional man without any step being taking
  to verify the accuracy and truth of statements

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T.B.C.

• The plaintiff was awarded 900, 000.

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What Mr Chan said after the case

• He told SCMP that he felt happy and believed the
  judgement cleared his reputation.
• Originally, he just sought a published apology
  from the press group and a 50,000 donation to the
  UN Childrens Fund.
• He even considered further legal action pending
  against the SFO and YVR editions of Singtao.

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Significance of this case

• 2000 China Youth Development Ltd v Next Magazine,
  the compensatory damages that is to restore
  the plaintiff, as far as money can do, to the
  position he would have been in.
• 2003 Chan Chook Tim v Wong Kwok Hung, The
  ordinary meaning of words is the meaning in which
  the words would be understood by people using
  common sense.

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T.B.C.

• 2002 Sin Cho Chiu v Tin Tin Publication, In the
  absence of specific evidence as to loss of
  income, the reputations of professional persons,
  whether junior or senior, were to be treated as
  having equal value.

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Did media learn this lesson?

• NO!
• Both English Newspapers (Hong Kong Standard and
  the closed Eastern Express), which owned by
  Chinese Newspaper Press groups, had translation
  desk and did the translation works
• It is common because this arrangement can help
  the owner to save the money.

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What do we learn from this?

• A lot of legal terms about defamation
• Most Importantly, make a phone call before you
  write, it may help you to avoid troubles.