The Business Times in Singapore had published an apology in favour of a third party in respect of defamatory statements made by Mr Wright whose letter was previously published by the newspaper. The letter was found to be privileged when the letter writer alleged that the apology was defamatory of him.
Held: The Business Times had a moral, if not legal duty, to correct the original defamatory statements of the letter writer and its readers would be interested in knowing about the correction.
Chao Hick Tin J said (obiter): ‘In the circumstances of the present case, having regard to the letter of Mr Wright which was published in the BT (Business Times) . . there was clearly a duty, at least moral if not legal, for BT to make the statement in the apology to correct what it felt was an unwarranted attack by Wright on OCBC. Applying the criteria I have set out above, I am of the opinion that the publication of the apology was on an occasion of qualified privilege. The readers have read the attack on OCBC and they certainly have an interest to read the correction. Of course the defence of qualified privilege could be negatived by malice, but by no stretch of the imagination can one seriously allege there was any malice in OCBC causing the publication of or in BT having published the apology.
I agree that the position might be different if BT, having entirely on its own volition published a libel on OCBC, then sought to make a correction wherein it defamed a third party. I can see that in such a situation the court should perhaps be slow to recognise that there is such a duty as to create an occasion of qualified privilege.’
Judges:
Chao Hick Tin J
Citations:
[1994] 3 SLR 760
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Watts v Times Newspapers Ltd, Neil, Palmer and Schilling and Lom CA 28-Jul-1995
The plaintiff author had claimed damages for defamation, saying that he had been accused of plagiarism. An apology had been given in the form requested – no qualified privilege. The plaintiff brought an associated case against his lawyer, saying . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Defamation
Updated: 22 September 2022; Ref: scu.374708