Nation Media Group (NMG) has been fined Ksh12 million by the High Court of Kenya for publishing an incorrect story about Gulf Energy Limited.
According to court documents seen by The Kenya Times, a three-judge bench made the ruling on October 27, 2023.
Gulf submitted a petition against NMG indicating that the article, which had misleading information, was widely distributed within the country and elsewhere in the world.
Additionally, the oil company stated that the Daily Nation Newspaper had millions of readers within and without this jurisdiction who had free, open, and unhindered access to the libelous words.
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“Further and in the alternative, the appellants knew or ought to have known that once the
impugned article was printed and published in the Daily Nation Newspaper and on the website the same would be available for access and must infact be accessedby extremely large numbers of readers in Kenya the region and worldwide,” the ruling read in part.
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The Ruling by the High Court
Although the oil company wanted Ksh23 million as compensation for the defamation, the judges reduced the amount to ksh12 million.
In addition, the judges said they considered the nature of the injury, the scope, weight of the matter before making the ruling.
Also, they indicated that they took into account implications of the defamatory words, public interest and demands that awards must not be exorbitant, excessive, and unreasonable.
“For the sake of clarity, the award of Ksh15,000,000, general damages is reduced to Ksh10,000,000.
“We set aside the award granted as exemplary damages of Ksh5,000,000 and reduce the aggravated damages to Kshs. 2,000,000/-. The parties shall bear their own costs of this appeal,” the ruling read in part.
Notably, Gulf Energy argued that they commanded a lot of respect from members of the public before the article was published.
