Jagmohan’s libel case against GNNL/Chronicle settled out of court

– case against article’s author Harris continues

The Guyana National Newspaper Limited (GNNL), the publishers of the Guyana Chronicle newspaper, have reached an out of court settlement with well-known businessman and gold exporter Tamesh Jagmohan, who had sued them, along with writer Adam Harris, for $200 million for a defamatory article that was printed before management changed in August 2020.

Jagmohan, through his Attorneys-at-Law Glenn Hanoman, Manoj Narayan and Joshua Abdool, had sued GNNL on August 17, 2020, for an article they printed on May 3, 2020, under the pen of Harris.
It is an article that made a number of defamatory statements about Jagmohan and his activities during the election period. Jagmohan, the Executive Director for El Dorado Trading, was an election observer during the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
At the time the article was published, the Guyana Chronicle newspaper was under the management and stewardship of a Board of Directors appointed by the previous A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government, who in turn appointed the management team.
“A new Board of Directors was appointed in September 2020, and that Board considered the allegations raised in the lawsuit filed by Mr Jagmohan and also sought legal advice thereon,” a statement from GNNL stated, adding that their review of the case showed Chronicle’s new administration that there was no evidence to support the baseless allegations in the article.

“It was further determined that none of the allegations published against Mr Jagmohan could be corroborated or supported by any records or information in the possession of the newspaper and that the publication was completely unjustifiable and indefensible. As a result, the Guyana Chronicle under the administration of its new Board immediately caused the defamatory article to be removed from the newspaper’s website and online archive.”
GNNL in their statement went on to apologise to Jagmohan and his family for the defamatory article and noted that their settlement does not affect the liability of Harris, who is still a defendant in the case. And in an interview with this publication, Narayan made it clear that his client will be continuing his lawsuit against Harris. In his lawsuit, Jagmohan had sought over $150 million in damages and $50 million in aggravated damages, as well as injunctions.
The lawyer noted the negative impact the article had on Jagmohan’s reputation and business and the work that had to be done to re-establish his reputation and partnerships on an international scale. Narayan pointed out that the baseless article resulted in intense scrutiny for his client, which he has since been able to clear.
“This settlement only relates to those two parties (GNNL and Jagmohan). Mr Adam Harris is also a defendant in the case and Mr Jagmohan is pursuing the case to its end against Adam Harris. As you know Mr Jagmohan is perhaps the largest gold exporter from Guyana. He holds an export licence for gold and it’s one of his larger business ventures from Guyana,” Narayan said.
“The volume of gold he exports annually when you’re dealing with that kind of volume of gold, you tend to establish banking relations not only locally but regionally and internationally. And then you have the suppliers. And so, any hint or allegation of wrongdoing, whether true or not, could affect those business relationships.”
Narayan noted that Jagmohan was eventually able to clear himself, due to the fact that he was innocent of the allegations contained in the article. Nevertheless, the article for a time put his client’s business under strain and caused tremendous harm.
“It did cause severe strain and tension on his international business, which he’s had to work assiduously to clarify and clear up and set the record straight, that he’s not involved in any of those activities that he was alleged to be involved in. It was just a reckless article that was published at the time, because Mr Jagmohan was perceived to be a supporter of a particular political party.”