ROHANA BINTI IBRAHIM v KHADIJAH BINTI ISKANDAR PIHAK TERKILAN Mohamad Yusri bin Abdullah

Case Significance

Confirms that defamatory statements about a colleague's professional competence and character, made in a recorded online meeting and recirculated, are actionable where no defence of justification is made out, supporting an award of general and aggravated damages.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam is a defamation action arising from words spoken in an online work meeting and later recirculated, illustrating how the courts treat statements about a colleague's professional competence and character. The plaintiff and the defendant were both employees of a development bank; the plaintiff was a relationship manager, and the defendant was at the material time the acting chief executive of the bank. The plaintiff sued over remarks the defendant made during a Microsoft Teams meeting with the bank's chief credit officer, an excerpt of which was subsequently recorded and circulated through WhatsApp. The plaintiff alleged that the words were spoken with malice and were capable of bearing defamatory imputations about her professional capability and moral character; the defendant denied this and the action went to trial.

The court considered whether the offending statements were capable of bearing the pleaded defamatory meanings and whether the defendant was responsible for both the original publication and the re-publication of the recording. It found the imputations against the plaintiff's professional competence and character to be defamatory, that no justification had been pleaded or proved, and that the explanations advanced by the defence were mutually contradictory, wholly incongruous with the facts, and not believable. In assessing relief, the court took into account the extent of the publication for which the defendant was legally responsible and concluded that there was no real risk of repetition, so that an order for an apology would do more harm by re-agitating a matter better laid to rest.

The court allowed the claim, awarding general and aggravated damages of RM30,000, interest at five per cent per annum from the date of the writ until full payment, and costs of RM25,000, while declining the other reliefs sought. The judgment illustrates that defamatory statements about a colleague's professional competence and character, made in a recorded meeting and recirculated, are actionable where no defence of justification is made out.