Injunction against Tobago media company formed 37 days ago

An in­ter­im in­junc­tion has been grant­ed against Now TV To­ba­go, a me­dia com­pa­ny formed 37 days ago, over the pub­li­ca­tion of al­leged defam­a­to­ry state­ments against Mil­ford Road Es­planade Lim­it­ed chair­man Kevon McKen­na.

Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in grant­ed the in­junc­tion on April 4, one day af­ter McKen­na served Now TV To­ba­go di­rec­tors and three oth­er de­fen­dants with pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters.

The oth­er de­fen­dants in­clude Uni­ty of the Peo­ple po­lit­i­cal leader Nick­o­cy Phillips, ex-MREL em­ploy­ee Ker­ron Radg­man and Leroy George.

Radg­man had made al­le­ga­tions con­cern­ing the pro­cure­ment process at MREL.

In her rul­ing, Gob­in pro­hib­it­ed the de­fen­dants from fur­ther pub­lish­ing or caus­ing to be pub­lished the words and or cer­tain videos cre­at­ed by Radg­man or George, made be­tween March 25 and April 2, or any sim­i­lar words or videos defam­a­to­ry of the claimant whether oral­ly, in writ­ing, or via so­cial me­dia plat­forms, in­clud­ing Face­book, Tik­Tok, What­sApp, or any oth­er medi­um, un­til tri­al or un­til fur­ther or­der.

The in­junc­tion al­so pro­hibits the de­fen­dants and their agents from trans­mis­sion, stor­age, and in­dex­ing of any part or parts of cer­tain videos pub­lished by Rad­man or George dur­ing the same pe­ri­od.

In a me­dia re­lease on April 4, the MREL said it took great of­fence to al­leged defam­a­to­ry re­marks cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia be­tween the pe­ri­od.

It named the de­fen­dants as the peo­ple “who ini­ti­at­ed and fu­elled the spread­ing of mis­in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic space.”

It claimed Now TV To­ba­go post­ed con­tent cre­at­ed by Radg­man “with­out any fact-find­ing or con­sul­ta­tion” of McKen­na or MREL to de­ter­mine the ve­rac­i­ty of the state­ments.

MREL has re­quest­ed Now TV To­ba­go im­me­di­ate­ly re­move the al­leged defam­a­to­ry pub­li­ca­tion from its Face­book page, apol­o­gise pub­licly and give an un­der­tak­ing not to fur­ther pub­lish or dis­sem­i­nate defam­a­to­ry or mis­lead­ing con­tent about MREL or its agents. It is al­so seek­ing dam­ages from all de­fen­dants for harm caused and le­gal costs.

MREL said the di­rec­tors of Now TV To­ba­go have on­ly re­moved the al­leged defam­a­to­ry videos thus far.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on April 5 at­tor­ney Christlyn Moore, who is rep­re­sent­ing McKen­na, said she was not sat­is­fied that all of­fend­ing com­ments have been re­moved.

Moore said at least one de­fen­dant still has al­leged defam­a­to­ry com­ments post­ed on­line.

“At the ap­pro­pri­ate time we will make rep­re­sen­ta­tions on that is­sue on the fail­ure of the de­fen­dant to re­move con­tent and we will ask the court to make the ap­pro­pri­ate or­der in dam­ages and in costs,” she said.

Now TV To­ba­go was in­cor­po­rat­ed on Feb­ru­ary 27.

Ef­forts to con­tact the com­pa­ny on April 5 were un­suc­cess­ful as calls went unan­swered.

The mat­ter has been ad­journed to April 22.