To enforce the $10 million judgment he has won against the Kaieteur News (KN), former Executive Director of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited, (NICIL) Winston Brassington has moved to garnish sums from a bank account belonging to the newspaper company.
Through his attorney, Timothy Jonas, Brassington has also moved to the High Court to appoint a receiver to recover from the income and/or capital assets of the newspaper in order to satisfy the judgement he was awarded.
The $10 million award was made by a judge back in February and is one of several won by Brassington against KN over the last year.
Jonas has confirmed to this newspaper that his client has already successfully garnished some money from a Republic Bank account belonging to Kaieteur News but did not specify the sum. He also noted the application to appoint a receiver.
Brassington has won a number of lawsuits against the Kaieteur News (KN) for defamatory statements it published about him back in 2014.
Just last month he was awarded $2 million in damages—the lowest of the amounts he has been previously awarded in similar actions he brought against KN, its owner Glenn Lall and former editor Adam Harris.
Back in February of this year he was awarded $10 million and mere months before—in September—he was awarded over $18 million.
High Court Judge Fidela Corbin-Lincoln, who has been the presiding judge in some of the matters, has said that the Court needed to take into consideration that the actions were all related, and that Brassington’s evidence did not disclose that he suffered any additional loss and damage over and above that which was occasioned from the other publications.
In her ruling on the latest action, the judge had said that in fact Brassington’s witness statement in the instant case was almost identical to that filed in the other cases, while adding that “the objective of an award of damages in defamation is to compensate, rather than penalise.
In the circumstances, the judge said she found that the previous award of damages for words of similar effect which were published in close proximity, should operate as a form of mitigation of damages.
Having regard to all the factors, aggravating and mitigating, Justice Corbin-Lincoln assessed damages in the sum of $2,000,000.
Like the finding in the other cases over which she and other judges presided, Justice Corbin-Lincoln ruled that certain words published by KN against Brassington were in fact defamatory.
Brassington (the Plaintiff) had complained that in the March 16, 2014 edition, KN and Harris (the Defendants), published in the “Dem boys seh” column words pertaining to him which defamed his character. One of the columns related to the Marriott Hotel.
Brassington had repeatedly averred that the words meant and were understood to mean that he was “dishonest, had been guilty of criminal activity and was habitually guilty of criminal activity and ought to be imprisoned.”
The courts repeatedly threw out the defences of justification, fair comment and qualified privilege raised by the Kaieteur News.
