GBL pays ?42m for lying

An Accra High Court presided over by Justice Mrs Agnes Dordzie, has slapped a ?40 million fine on the management of Ghana Breweries Limited (GBL).

The court also awarded costs of ?2 million against the company for defaming a former member of staff of the company, and bringing his reputation into disrepute.

The award of the damages, follows the failure of the management of the GBL, producers of a wide range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages such as Star, ABC beer, Bluna drinks and draught beers, to justify two separate unsolicited and unsubstantiated letters they had secretly dispatched to the management of Guinness Ghana Limited (GGL) somewhere in September 1998 intended to defame, malign and make false claims against a former employee of the GBL, William Thompson.

Thompson had resigned from the GBL to seek employment with Guinness, a competitor in the breweries industry in the country. By reference therefore the letter sought to describe Thompson, their former employee, as a thief and a fraudster, who was unqualified to hold himself out as a member of staff of Guinness.

These damaging letters written on two separate occasions, were not directly sent to the addressee nor his forwarding address. Rather they were sent to the Human Resource Manager of the Guinness with damaging reports about Mr Thompson.

As a result of the letters, the management of Guinness wrote to terminate Thompson’s employment without giving him any chance to defend himself.

He therefore, instituted his own investigations and realized that it was on account of letters written by Mr Kwesi Brew, the Human Resource Manager of GBL that had made his current employers, to terminate his appointment without giving him any notice.

Thompson therefore decided to institute an action in court to redeem his reputation and to demand ?40 million by way of compensation from the GBL.

He also prayed the court to restrain the GBL from ever repeating the publication of the defamatory words about him.