Ctos wins defamation suit against Kayveas

The Kuala Lumpur High Court has ordered PPP president M Kayveas to pay RM170,000 to credit information provider Ctos Sdn Bhd and three related companies for defamation.

High Court judge Justice Rosilah Yop ruled that the plaintiffs were to be awarded RM120,000 in general damages and RM50,000 for exemplary damages.

Justice Rosilah ruled that Kayveas’s plea of qualified privilege and fair comment were untenable. She also ruled that he had defamed the plaintiffs in bad faith and affected their reputation.

“There were clients of the plaintiffs which ceased seeking their services,” she ruled.

The judge ruled that the exemplary damages were awarded based on Kayveas’ then position as a deputy cabinet minister with the people’s mandate, who thus cannot indiscriminately make statements without consideration of the facts.

The suit was filed by Ctos, along with Ctos Data Systems Sdn Bhd, Ctos-EMR Sdn Bhd and Ctos Business Systems Sdn Bhd, in September 2007.

They claim that Kayveas - as the deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Department overseeing the insolvency department - had uttered defamatory statements against them that was widely reported by the press between June 25 and July 15, 2007.

At a press conference on June 28, 2007 Kayveas had accused Ctos of holding the public to ransom for archiving publicly available information of 780,000 people which were accessible by creditors for a fee.

The that same day, Ctos Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Chung Tze Keong replied that Ctos was merely providing “first information” to aid businesses in assessing the credit-worthiness of their customers.

Kayveas undeterred

Contacted for comments, Kayveas appeared nonchalant towards the ruling and said he will be speaking to his lawyer, senior federal counsel Mohammad Al-Saifi Hashim, on filing an appeal.

“I’m being punished for the sake of the people. It is okay la,” he said.

Kayveas said he made statements against Ctos because there were many people who were suffering and that he did not have any vendetta against the company.

“I raised the issues based on 60,000 complaints. I spoke up based on the people’s frustrations. PPP’s slogan is ‘Bersuara bersama communiti (Voicing up with the community)’.

“So let the people be the judge of this. It doesn’t affect or break my spirit to speak up for the people,” he said.

Mohmmad Al-Saifi told Malaysiakini that his team will study the judgment first before taking further instructions from their client.

Ctos has yet to respond to requests for comments.