LA PRENSA has been orered to pay $600,000 in damages to David and Daniel Ochy, owners of the construction company Transcaribe Trading.
The decision was handed dwon by The 13th Civil Court and will be appealed.
The brothers filed a $6 million lawsuit against La Prensa for articles it published in July and August of 2012.
They claimed the articles, which were related to state contracts received by the company, were “false, reckless, insulting and degrading.” La Prensa had disputed the claims, saying the articles were based on public records and concerned a matter of public interest.
The plaintiffs claimed in its complaint of Sept. 6, 2012, that the publications were part of a “smear campaign” to generate “an atmosphere of turbidity and irregularity on public works that have been developed by Transcaribe Trading.”
They also said that the articles sought to “establish that they have been irregularly favored with millionaire contracts by the government.”
The brothers also said that they “have never been investigated for any crime” related to the contracts.
La Prensa, which plans to appeal the decision, argued that the newspaper gave the company numerous opportunities to reply to the allegations in the story and that the information within them were based on public records. It also said the articles were a legitimate exercise of the fundamental right of freedom of expression, recognized in the Constitution and human rights treaties signed and ratified by Panama.
