The New Statesman newspaper has apologized to Ghanaian energy company, Springfield after publishing alleged ‘falsehood’ against the company.
Springfield had claimed that the New Statesman and some other newspapers had “published rumours” that were “false, baseless and calculated to do untold harm to our business interests and undermine our hard-won reputation.”
The company thus sued the New Statesman demanding to be awarded GH¢30 million in damages or the equivalent of 7 million dollars.
Meanwhile the New Statesman in its latest edition carried a front page banner titled : RETRACTION: REPORT ON KEVIN OKYERE AND SPRINGFIELD in which the paper expressed it’s profound apology for the publication.
Meanwhile, it is yet unknown whether Springfield will at this stage discontinue the legal action.
Below is an earlier statement from Springfield:
We view with great concern rumours emanating from the segment of the social, print and electronic media that our company is one of those involved in unwholesome activities in the Oil and Gas industry in Nigeria.
We have instructed our lawyers to file law suits against The New Statesman, The Al-Hajj, Herald and The Republic for participating in the publication of falsehood against our CEO, Kevin Okyere and our company relating to our businesses in Ghana and Nigeria.
We would like to use this opportunity to thank those media houses who have asked for our own side of the story before publishing.
In the same vein, we will robustly defend our companies’ reputation against any media or persons who will attempt to tarnish it.
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