Guan Eng will need to show the court how much bribe money he lost
The court will say you need to have a reputation in the first place to be able to lose it. However, since Guan Eng’s reputation has been practically destroyed and it is now worth zero, he cannot put any value to it and claim damages for “loss of reputation”.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
“Former Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng will testify in the hearing of assessment of damages in his defamation suit against blogger Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin over allegation of corruption in the RM6.3 billion Penang undersea tunnel project,” said Bernama today.
“The court has set August 21st for hearing and we told the court that so far only one plaintiff’s witness will testify and that is Lim himself,” Guan Eng’s lawyer, Simon Murali, said (READ MORE HERE).
Guan Eng filed the suit against me on 6th September 2019 over a series of articles titled “From the MACC Files” — which were published in Malaysia Today in English and Bahasa Malaysia between 24th February and 15th March 2019 regarding corruption involving the Penang undersea tunnel.
Guan Eng will need to convince the court he still has a reputation after sucking Mahathir’s benda itu
Guan Eng is seeking exemplary damages on grounds that Malaysia Today had profited from these articles because of the blog’s extremely high readership.
Actually, the high number of readers that Malaysia Today has and how much “profit” Malaysia Today may have made from these articles is not what the judge will be considering. What the judge will consider instead is how much “loss” Guan Eng suffered because of these articles.
For example, Guan Eng may have been receiving RM50 million a month in bribes because of his position as Malaysia’s Finance Minister. However, since these articles were published in February and March last year, people have stopped paying Guan Eng bribes because they are scared about the negative publicity.
Guan Eng will have to show the court how much he suffered in loss of bribe income because of Malaysia Today’s articles
Hence Guan Eng can tell the court that since these articles came out he has “lost” RM900 million or almost RM1 billion in bribes. And that RM900 million or almost RM1 billion in bribes that he is no longer receiving can be the basis for the “loss” which he is claiming from me.
However, Guan Eng needs to first prove to the court (with documentary evidence) that he used to receive RM50 million a month in bribes before Malaysia Today ran those articles — and that since those articles came out he no longer receives this RM50 million a month in bribes.
And he needs to prove that the RM50 million a month in bribes have stopped coming in because of Malaysia Today’s article regarding corruption involving the Penang undersea tunnel (because it could be he no longer receives this RM50 a month in bribes because he is no longer the Finance Minister and not because of Malaysia Today’s articles).
MACC’s investigation proved that Guan Eng did receive bribes
Another approach could be Guan Eng tells the court that since Malaysia Today published those articles regarding corruption involving the Penang undersea tunnel he has lost his job or has been sacked as Malaysia’s Finance Minister. Then Guan Eng can argue he has lost a lot of income because of this: both the official or legal income as Finance Minister plus the under-table income or kickbacks he used to receive (what Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad calls “offset”).
Of course, this, again, needs to be proven with documentary evidence.
Another claim Guan Eng can make against me is that his reputation has suffered (which must be tagged to how much he has financially lost because of this). But then Guan Eng never really had any reputation to begin with, so that approach may be a bit difficult.
The fact that Guan Eng is an ex-con (he was jailed for contempt of court — which means Guan Eng has no respect for courts) and that he went to bed with Mahathir after condemning the old man and calling him the most corrupt prime minister in world history, has practically destroyed Guan Eng’s reputation and it is now worth zero.
Jeffery Chew, now arrested, was handling the bribes on behalf of Guan Eng
Furthermore, yesterday, the MACC announced they are relaunching investigations into the Penang undersea tunnel and one of the DAP leaders who was handling the bribes, Jeffery Chew, has just been arrested regarding this case (READ MORE HERE) makes it even more difficult for Guan Eng to purse this “loss of reputation” angle.
The court will say you need to have a reputation in the first place to be able to lose it. However, since Guan Eng’s reputation has been practically destroyed and it is now worth zero, he cannot put any value to it and claim damages for “loss of reputation”.
