Business News operates according to the provisions of Press Law No. 96 of 1996 as an Egyptian shareholding company. It applies all legal rules and professional requirements to its editorial staff, and all of its publications are licensed by the Supreme Press Council.
The company has been working in the press and media field since 2008, and neither it, nor any of its employees or founders, belong to any partisan, political, or religious groups. It has never expressed any bias towards a particular group, while its editorial line is of a liberal nature.
By virtue of the nature of its work, the company and its publications have close relations with important institutions in the country. President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi chose to publish in one of the company’s publications two articles in 2014 and 2015 about the state’s economic policies, as part of a message directed to investors taking part in the Euromoney conference, to emphasise the importance of our press publications and their credibility to the presidency. The press publications of Business News look into each individual or institution they deal with in order to uphold their journalistic credibility.
The company was startled to learn about the decision made by the judicial committee tasked with freezing the Muslim Brotherhood’s assets to seize its funds and freeze its assets and the assets and bank accounts of its chairperson.
Moustafa Sakr, the chairperson of Business News, stressed that the company will seek to defend its reputation and interests, as well as the interests of the more than 230 employees working for it. It will do what is necessary to prove the authenticity of its situation, which conforms to all the legal standards in Egypt.
The company is completely confident in the validity of its legal position and has nothing to fear. Its legal representative filed an appeal to the judicial committee tasked with freezing the Brotherhood’s assets, explaining all the legal and financial aspects of the company’s work and the editorial policy of its publications.
The company emphasises its confidence in the integrity of the committee tasked with looking into the appeal against the decision, where the legal measures will confirm the integrity of the company’s legal and financial situation; however, the damage to the institution’s finances and reputation that would occur to it as a result threatens institutions practising their work legally and with integrity, putting them in front of the possibility of such violent procedures taken against them without investigations or questions to their administration. This affects the investment climate and restricts all the efforts made to motivate investors to reinvigorate the economy.
With all our respect to the committee, we expect it to understand the nature of journalistic work, which requires confidence in dealing with all government and private agencies, and the sensitivity of the media industry.
Because we are a media organisation, both our situation and policy are crystal clear in terms of adhering to the professional rules and credibility, as well as in supporting policies of reform, promoting investment opportunities, and adopting a stance that supports the economy.
The company also emphasises the strength of its relations with ministries and government agencies that it communicates with through its publications and during its events and conferences over three years, all under the sponsorship of the prime minister and the ministers who participated in these conferences, each in their field, in addition to government agencies and bodies.
The company stresses that its budget and the reports of its activities are all available and approved by the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI). It stresses that it finances its activities through its capital and advertisement revenues, and has not received any financing from local or foreign parties. It also goes through difficulties to achieve an independent journalistic experience, applying clear standards to separate between opinions, news, editing, and advertising, offering its services to readers with independency and without partisanship or affiliation to anything but the profession’s standards and the journalistic code of ethics.
