The linked article doesn't make a distinction between accusations that are found to be true or false - suggesting that bad-faith accusations are just as damaging as those found to be accurate.

There is a lot wrong with this comment.

1) The article doesn't mention anything at all about this.

2) The paper probably also doesn't mention anything about this (not up on sci-hub but nothing in the summary).

3) In general you can't make a positive claim about something that wasn't tested.

4) Getting accurate data for this would be almost impossible.

Yes, the more media attention the scandal got, the greater the losses to the company. The truth or falseness of the accusations didn't play a role.