A Excessive courtroom in Accra (Normal Jurisdiction 7) has awarded a value of GH750,000 towards ABSA Financial institution Ghana Restricted for defaming Mr Adri Hopson, an actual property developer.
In 2019, Mr Hopson, the plaintiff offered two separate two-bedroom homes to 2 workers of the Financial institution, Isaac Quao and Linda Mokeh.
The plaintiff had said in his writ of summons filed by his lawyer, Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo that he was subsequently invited by the Better Accra Regional Police Command to answer a criticism of fraud lodged towards him by the Financial institution, the defendant, concerning his sale of encumbered properties to its two workers.
In the meantime, the plaintiff had argued that the properties weren’t encumbered in any method, due to this fact, the act of the defendant in lodging a criticism towards him was defamatory.
Mr Hopson contends that he was not concerned in any contract or transaction with the defendant Financial institution.
In his judgement on Could 22, the presiding choose, Justice Ali Baba Abature held that the criticism of defrauding by false pretences lodged towards the plaintiff by the defendant Financial institution was defamatory because it was made out of malice with out possible and affordable trigger, thereby harming the status of the plaintiff as a profitable and revered. businessman.
Justice Abature said that the 2 employees of the Financial institution had been in occupation of the properties the plaintiff genuinely offered to them, with certainly one of them admitting that she has registered her title to the property she bought.
Consequently, the choose awarded GH300,000 typically damages to be paid to the plaintiff by the defendant, punitive damages of GH300,000, compensatory damages of GH150,000. and prices, together with providers value of GH100,000 towards defendant in favour of the plaintiff.
The defendant had informed the courtroom that the plaintiff mortgaged the properties he offered to its workers, however Nii Addo, counsel for the plaintiff averred that the
properties the defendant claimed had been mortgaged by his consumer weren’t the properties offered to the 2 workers of the defendant.
It was the case of the plaintiff that he handled the defendant’s two workers in good religion and didn’t suppress any materials truth from the workers and that malice occurred on the a part of the defendant when the criticism of fraud was made to the police with intent to hurt his picture or status.
The defendant, then again, denied all of the averments of the plaintiff.
In its assertion of defence, ABSA averred that the outcomes of an preliminary search performed by its Central Securities Unit (CSU) on the properties offered to its two workers by the plaintiff indicated that there have been no encumbrances on the property earlier than it accepted the talked about workers’ utility for a mortgage beneath its Financial institution Employees Mortgage Mortgage Coverage.
Nonetheless, the defendant said that subsequent investigations on the time the stated workers’ mortgage paperwork had been submitted to the Land Title Division for registration of its curiosity within the properties by advantage of the mortgage mortgage it granted to the 2 workers for the acquisition of the properties have revealed that the properties the plaintiff offered to its two workers had been encumbered as a mortgage had already been registered on the stated properties.
Consequently, the defendant’s mortgage curiosity cost within the two properties couldn’t be registered thereby rendering the mortgage facility it granted to its two talked about workers unsecure.
Because of this, ABSA stated its Fraud Threat Administration and Investigations Unit was commissioned to conduct forensic investigations into the conduct of the plaintiff, and the investigation report revealed that that the Plaintiff had mortgaged sure properties together with the 2 that Plaintiff offered to its workers to First Belief Financial savings and Loans for a mortgage facility.
Defendant due to this fact lodged a criticism with the Regional Crime Officer of the Better Accra Regional Police Command to analyze the matter.
BY MALIK SULLEMANA
