REAL News encourages GBC management to read report again after bank makes accusations of defamation

REAL News Antigua is encouraging the Global Bank of Commerce
(GBC) to reconsider a statement it published on Thursday, April
4, in which it accuses this news organization of making claims
that “it is being bought by a Chinese investor.”

The bank’s financial difficulties not only have been made public
by Jack Stroll – a depositor who sued the institution and its chief
executive officer, Brian Stuart-Young, and won a judgment against
them – but its correspondent-banking challenges have been
publicized by Prime Minister Gaston Browne.

And, yet, the statement put out by GBC’s management further
accuses REAL News of publishing “unfounded and defamatory
inferences … to put fear and uncertainty into the minds of the
public.”

The management of REAL News contends that any such fear and
uncertainty would have been generated long ago by the
aforementioned instances.

On Wednesday, April 3, our Newsroom reported on an unnamed
businessman who was accused of perpetrating financial fraud in
his native China and who has been identified as an “investor” and
a CIP passport-holder.

The article also noted that: “… inside sources allege that he is
being courted to buy out a failing financial institution here.
“It is believed that this is the person to whom Prime Minister
Gaston Browne alluded when asked about the fortunes of the
Global Bank of Commerce in Parliament about six weeks ago –
although he claimed not to know the person’s identity.”

REAL News made absolutely no statements to the effect that GBC
has been bought or is in “any purchase negotiations” with this
individual or any other.