Following the move by former Executive Director of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) Winston Brassington to garnish sums in a bid to recover the almost $40 million in damages he has won in judgments against the Kaieteur News (KN), the newspaper company is appealing for time to pay.
Citing financial constraints primarily caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, owner of the newspaper Glenn Lall, through his attorney Christopher Ram, has been making fervent pleas for a chance to pay the outstanding balance of some $18 million in installments.
When the matter came up for hearing yesterday afternoon before Justice Nareshwar Harnanan, Ram renewed his client’s pleas for Brassington, who has already been paid some $20 million, to allow him time to pay the little more than $18 million remaining.
Brassington has already received some $20 million which he garnished from a bank account belonging to Kaieteur News through appointing a receiver to recover from the income and/or capital assets of the newspaper in order to satisfy judgments awarded.
Ram said that his client will honour the obligation to pay; even as he made an impassioned request that the garnishee proceedings against KN and the appointment of a receiver be withdrawn.
The lawyer proposed a payment of $2 million per month until the full outstanding balance is completely paid.
Senior Counsel Timothy Jonas, who represents Brassington, however, was unmoved by the proposal, while arguing that his client has “suffered enough” and would have to wait for more than another year before he is paid in full.
According to Jonas, KN has previously shown “bad faith” in honouring its obligations and he said that because of this he is hesitant to now take the word of its publisher, Lall.
Jonas said it was only after “someone’s arm was twisted,” through the garnishee proceedings, that his client started receiving any money. Jonas said that for in excess of a year after the first award was made, there had been no “voluntary payment” by Kaieteur News.
The lawyer’s contention is that the newspaper has been looking for every avenue possible to evade payment, which was finally made possible only because its proprietor had no choice because of the garnishment.
Opposed to Ram’s initial offer of $2 million and then $3 million monthly, Jonas made a counter-proposal of $6 million monthly on behalf of his client, while demanding that the first payment be made immediately.
With this proposal, Jonas also asked the court for the garnishee proceedings and the appointment of the receiver be stayed until the outstanding sums are paid in full.
Justice Harnanan at that point stood down the virtual hearing for a short period to afford Ram some time to consult with a visibly-distressed Lall, who was on the call. Ram would later report that his client could not afford the sum proposed by Jonas given the constraints of the pandemic on his business, sales, cash-flow limitations and part of the business being on borrowed funds.
In the circumstances, the judge informed that the Court will have to hear arguments on the newspaper’s application for part payment and Brassington’s application for the appointment of a receiver and a garnishment order to recover the outstanding sums.
Both sides have been given timelines within which to file and serve submissions and Justice Harnanan has announced that he will render his ruling on November 11.
Brassington has won a number of lawsuits against the Kaieteur News for defamatory statements it published about him back in 2014.
As recent as August, he was awarded $2 million in damages, which is the lowest of the amounts he has been previously awarded in similar actions he brought against KN, Lall and former editor Adam Harris.
Back in February of this year, he was awarded $10 million and mere months before, in Septem-ber of 2020, he was awarded over $18 million.
He had been awarded various amounts prior.
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 his most recent action, for which he was awarded damages in August, the judge had said that in fact Brassington’s witness statement in that 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.
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.
