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 The CEO of a satellite TV operation is suing a Dubai-based Arabic newspaper for libel to the tune of Dhs200 million, after the paper claimed said CEO had molested and threatened lawyers, been involved in shady business decisions, and was gay.
Unfortunately, due to the UAE’s hideously restrictive media and defamation laws, none of the parties involved in the lawsuit have been named. But maybe people can make some guesses.
This is particularly unfortunate from a voyeuristic point of view, since this case is an absolute hum-dinger, judging from Gulf News’s write-up
of the initial proceedings. Indeed, if what GN is reporting about the allegations made by the Arabic paper, we have to wonder what its editors were smoking at the time.
Here’s the details of the case as we know them: the Canadian CEO of a pan-Arab satellite TV broadcaster is suing the Dubai-based daily, which reprinted claims originally made by an Egyptian publication on its website.
Specifically, the CEO is claimed to have: sexually molested and then threatened an Egyptian lawyer; demanding “bizarre sexual services”; hired incompetent senior staff in his company, including a friend on a grossly-inflated salary.
Yowzers.
“The defendant's article humiliated, shamed and dishonoured the CEO through baselessly and maliciously accusing him of being a homosexual... the claimant was on the verge of getting married,” stated the claimant in his suit, as quoted by Gulf News.
All of this, the claimant reckons, is worth Dhs200 million, broken down into various pockets of shame.
And provided the claimant can produce a copy of the article, we can’t really see how the Arabic paper can defend the case. After all, as we should all be aware by now, truth is no defence in UAE defamation cases – although this might reduce the level of any penalty.
As a kicker, Gulf News also reports that the husband in one of the recent adultery cases, which saw a British woman jailed for three months, is suing an English-language paper for Dhs5 million for printing an allegedly defamatory piece.
Gosh, it’s turning into the USA here. But then, it’s easy money, we guess.
[insert generic hand-wringing about need for media law reform here.]
We’ll try and keep an eye on the Case of the Molesting CEO (Except Not Because That’s Libellous) as it develops.
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