A filing at the High Court here revealed that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief’s solicitors Zain Megat & Murad filed a notice of discontinuance on June 11.
“A letter to the trial court stated that the parties had come to an amicable settlement,” it said.
Representing Lalitha, lawyer Kevin De Rozario of Messrs Khairuddin, Ngiam and Tan said they had also signed the notice of discontinuance filed by Azam’s solicitors.
Case management was held today before Justice Akhtar Tahir, who vacated the trial dates, which were set to begin on July 9.
Lalitha said the suit had come to a logical conclusion with no order as to costs.
“It is not worth fighting a lengthy and expensive case which will drain one’s time and resources,” she told FMT.
Azam sued Lalitha in January 2022 over a two-part series she had written titled “Business ties among MACC leadership: how deep does it go?”
The articles were published on the Independent News Service portal on Oct 26, 2021, and republished on Dec 15 the same year.
Azam also claimed that Lalitha had shared the links to the articles on her Twitter account, @LalithaVelvet.
He said the articles were sensational, scandalous and offensive.
He also said they were written and republished maliciously to portray him as a corrupt civil servant who had abused his position as a senior MACC officer for his or his sibling’s interests.
He claimed the allegedly defamatory statements suggested that he owned shares and warrants worth millions of ringgit purchased with money obtained illegally.
He said they also suggested that he had invested millions of ringgit over a short period of time, and had not declared the purchase of shares and warrants during his tenure as MACC’s director of investigations.
He also claimed the articles suggested that he and his brother were directly or indirectly involved in illegal activities through a company known as RI Intelligence Sdn Bhd.
In her defence, Lalitha denied that the articles, taken in their proper context and natural and ordinary meaning, were defamatory of Azam.
In any event, she said, she was entitled to rely on the defence of justification, qualified privilege, neutral reportage, the “Reynolds defence”, fair comment, and several provisions in the Defamation Act 1957.
The “Reynolds defence” was developed by the House of Lords in a landmark case known as Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd (1999).
In that case, England’s apex court held that a journalist reporting responsibly on matters of public concern was entitled to protection from defamation suits even if the report contained allegations which turned out to be wrong.