A television and radio pundit was ordered by the Taipei District Court yesterday to pay NT$2 million (US$60,346) in compensation to Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) for falsely claiming that Gou made a NT$300 million political contribution to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate during last year’s Taipei mayoral election.
Clara Chou (周玉蔻), a HitFm radio host and frequent TV talk-show guest, in addition to paying monetary damages, was also ordered to write a half-page apology statement to be published on the front pages of seven newspapers, as well as on my-formosa.com.
Chou said on Facebook that she would definitely appeal the ruling.
According to the court, an investigation proved that Gou did not donate NT$300 million to Sean Lien (連勝文).
Chou made the claim based solely on an account by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and did not verify it with Gou or Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), the court said.
The case can be traced back to January, when Ko said in a radio interview that during the run-up to the mayoral election, a certain entrepreneur gave NT$300 million to his rival.
Soon after, Chou said on a TV talk-show that the entrepreneur mentioned by Ko was Gou.
Gou later filed a defamation suit against Chou. He also filed a civil lawsuit to demand compensation of NT$10 million from Chou.
When testifying in court, Ko said before the mayoral election, he had turned to Ker to help introduce him to Gou in the hope of seeking the tycoon’s support.
Ko said he was told that Gou supported his rival and had given the latter NT$300 million. Ko said he therefore dropped the idea of meeting Gou.
However, Ker testified that Ko misunderstood what he said. Ker said what he meant was that Gou had donated NT$300 million to the Taipei Pavilion of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai during the tenure of former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌).
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