Exclusive: Tesco sues writer for 100M
Kamol Kamoltrakul, senior activist and columnist and an expert on globalisation and human rights is now facing civil defamation charges filed by the Tesco-Lotus megastore and distribution company.
In his October 2007 column reprinted in full below in English translation, he questioned the impact of megastores which are rapidly emerging in local areas and then inevitably forcing 40% of local shops to close by undercutting their prices. Will Tesco want to sue FACT for reprinting?
Tesco-Lotus is demanding 100 million Thai baht (approx. three million USD) in compensation. Kamol is looking for both legal defense and funding to fight these spurious charges.
So far there is no criminal case against him yet. In the civil case, he is the only one sued against; neither the editors nor the newspaper have been named in the civil charges. There is some speculation that a new Printing Act 2007 was promulgated by the military junta’s National legislative Assembly which clearly places media and editors above charges but leaving responsibility with columnists, news sources and citizens.
You should contact Kamol with you support: <kamolt@yahoo.com>
When Shin Corporation sued media activist Supinya Klangnarong, the court’s verdict stated that any public company is also a public figure which must tolerate criticism in the public interest.
This case is certain to take many years to resolve in court UNLESS we all raise an outcry against Lotus. BOYCOTT LOTUS?
Kamol Kamoltrakul
Bangkokbiznews: October 29, 2007
The approval of the Retailing Act 2007 by the Cabinet at the early of this month meeting was a little bit too late. It was because currently all of the retail superstores both Thai and foreign owns have expanded their branches to cover almost every provinces of the country. At least, they already had licenses approved or already start building which the law cannot enforce what have been done prior.
Besides, the unenforceable of this legislation, it would strengthen the monopoly of these retail superstores permanently because the law prevent new comers. This law just don’t solve the real problem. There should have policy to relocate these retail superstores from town center to suburb area in an appropriate time period.
At the moment, the expansion of the retail superstores have drove 40 % of small retailers and mom and pop business out already . These middle class which are the blood vessel of the economy have been wipe out by the expansion of the retail superstores.
The irony is these retail superstores usually locate across the morning market which is constitute the traditional way of life and local culture. The market is the economic or trading center of the poor from rural farm who bring produces to sell or exchange and buy other necessities back home. There are million of these people around the country who would be destroyed. Their children may have no future but potentially would be criminals.
Most countries in Southeast Asia such as Malaysia Indonesia Philippines and Vietnam have some regulations to control the expansion of the foreign own retail superstores in order to protect local small retailers. Only Thailand that do not have these kind of regulations. Thailand becomes a heaven of foreign investors or a land of smile of the foreign investors but Thai small retailers can’t smile. They are free to be crushed by the bigger capitalists without protection from their own government.
Jeffrey Adams, the Chairman of the Executive Board of the Tesco-Lotus Thailand, claims that Tesco-Lotus is the number one modern trade of Thailand and the gross sale is the second of the foreign income .
Thai people should know the fact that Tesco-Lotus becomes the world fourth largest superstores with gross sales of 79,978 U.S. dollars. The shock is 37% of this income came from Thailand.
The information from the Thai Department of Commerce showed that in 2001, Tesco-Lotus have only 33 branches plus two Tesco-Lotus Express. But, in 2006 expanded to 91 branches which are more than the 73 provinces of Thailand. The Tesco-Lotus Express. were grown much rapidly to 200 stores and expect to open another 118 stores in 2007.
The sales in Thailand grew rapidly from 33,340 million baht in 2000 to 45,087 in 2001, and 54,340 million baht in 2002 to 64,695 million baht in 2003 then 72,736 million baht in 2004.
The profit from the mentioned sales mostly were sent back home to U.K. because of the complexity of accounting which can deduct a lot of expenses and turn out to have low profit. Some indirect income may not include in the income statement.
The report of the Association of Thai retail owners showed that in 2006 the market share of the total modern trade was 480,000 million baht or 34.2 of total retail trade of 1,400,000 million baht. The quantity of the total receipts of the retail superstores were 80 millions a month.
The Cabinet of the so called the aged ginger was too slow and ignored the problem of the middle and lower class and let the above situation became bad to worst. While many of the hopeless small retailers filed law suite in order to get justice from the court but the cases were thrown out because the judge said the small retailers were not the victims according to a definition of the Thai law. So, this is a painful fact and situation of the citizen who is the real owner the country.
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