{"id":11231,"date":"2026-04-13T04:52:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T04:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/11231\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T04:52:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T04:52:06","slug":"bakai-bank-wins-defamation-case-in-belgium-eyes-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/11231\/","title":{"rendered":"Bakai Bank Wins Defamation Case in Belgium, Eyes Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bakai Bank, one of the largest banks in Kyrgyzstan, <a href=\"https:\/\/brusselsmorning.com\/brussels-court-odf-bakai-bank-case\/96473\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"artcile-detail-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">has secured a legal victory<\/a> in Belgium after a court ruled in its favor in a defamation case against the Brussels-based NGO Open Dialogue Foundation over allegations related to Russia sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>The dispute arose from publications released by the Open Dialogue Foundation in 2023, which accused the bank of assisting Russia in circumventing international sanctions imposed following the invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>However, a Brussels court found that these claims were not supported by sufficiently verified evidence and had unlawfully harmed the bank\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n<p>The court ordered the NGO to remove all allegations and to publish the judgment prominently on its website for a period of 30 days, or face fines of \u20ac10,000 (HK$84,000) per day. It also rejected the foundation\u2019s argument that the lawsuit constituted a so-called SLAPP (strategic litigation against public participation), concluding that there was no evidence of abuse of legal process.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling comes as Bakai Bank is reportedly exploring international expansion, including a potential entry into the Hong Kong market. Hong Kong continues to position itself as a key financial gateway between Asia and emerging markets, and a move by Bakai Bank into the city would signal strengthening financial ties between Central Asia and the region.<\/p>\n<p>The court\u2019s decision may also enhance the bank\u2019s standing with regulators and potential partners when pursuing overseas opportunities, given the importance of reputational integrity in international financial centers.<\/p>\n<p>In October 2025, S&amp;P Global Ratings assigned Bakai Bank long- and short-term credit ratings of \u201cB\/B\u201d with a stable outlook, citing the bank\u2019s strong liquidity and capitalization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bakai Bank, one of the largest banks in Kyrgyzstan, has secured a legal victory in Belgium after a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,2894,400,5339,169,7695,2895,7697,7696,7698,865,7699,1176,2178,7694,1165],"class_list":["post-11231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgium","tag-breaking-news","tag-china","tag-english-daily","tag-finance","tag-free-newspaper","tag-headlines","tag-hong-kong-media","tag-hong-kong-news","tag-hong-kong-news-media","tag-latest-news","tag-sing-tao","tag-sports","tag-standard","tag-the-standard","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116395608910708162","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}