Busi­ness­man An­drew Gabriel has won his ap­peal over the Court of Ap­peal’s de­ci­sion to award him on­ly $10,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for defama­tion by cur­rent Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, Phillip Alexan­der.

De­liv­er­ing the judg­ment yes­ter­day, five Law Lords of the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil ruled that the lo­cal Court of Ap­peal was wrong to award nom­i­nal dam­ages, over­turn­ing its re­duc­tion from a High Court award of near­ly $775,000 for harm to Gabriel’s rep­u­ta­tion.

The law­suit arose from state­ments made by Alexan­der on a ra­dio talk show and in a sub­se­quent Face­book post in Feb­ru­ary 2017. Gabriel, own­er of an in­sur­ance bro­ker­age, ar­gued that the state­ments ac­cused him of se­ri­ous cor­rup­tion and crim­i­nal con­duct, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to his rep­u­ta­tion and emo­tion­al dis­tress to him and his fam­i­ly.