CX done it again....
Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., Hong Kong’s biggest carrier, won a reduction in damages for defamation it must pay a group of pilots fired in 2001 to HK$700,000 ($89,980) each.
The city’s Court of Appeal also overturned a wrongful dismissal judgment, sparing the carrier from having to pay the pilots a month’s salary. Judges Frank Stock, Susan Kwan and Johnson Lam further set aside the lower court’s award of costs to the pilots, and said they should pay some of Cathay’s costs.
The almost decade-long case centers on 18 pilots who were among 49 fired by Cathay on a single day in 2001. The group in November 2009 mainly won damages of HK$3.3 million each after the carrier defamed them in a statement from Chief Executive Officer Tony Tyler, then director of corporate development.
“It’s a significant reduction,” said Cathay’s lawyer Nick Hunsworth. The airline is satisfied with the judgment, he said. The carrier’s shares fell 0.7 percent to HK$21.65 at 12:14 a.m. in Hong Kong trading.
Benedict Chiu, a lawyer for the pilots, declined to comment. The pilots have the option to appeal to Hong Kong’s highest court.
Tyler issued a statement on July 9, 2001, saying the pilots “cannot be relied upon to act in the best interest of the company.” Cathay had lost confidence in the employees, he said.
The court of appeal rejected Cathay’s argument that the statement wasn’t defamatory, agreeing with the lower court that the airline didn’t discharge the burden of showing that it had acted responsibly and fairly in making its statements against the pilots.
The case is Blakeney-Williams Campbell Richard and Others v. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and Another, CACV66 and 268/2009 in the Hong Kong Court of Appeal.