A member of Kennedy Agyapong’s legal team, Eric Okyere Darko, has explained why the $18 million award for damages in the investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, suit against the former Member of Parliament for Assin Central for defamation, was slashed to $500.00.

Speaking on Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana, on May 14, 2025, Okyere Darko sought to break down the processes that led to the massive slash in the earlier $18 million damages awarded to the former legislator.

He stated that the outcome was based on further processes they pursued to challenge what he termed as an erroneous verdict by the jury in the case.

“… On March 15, 2025, the jury went into a deliberation and there was an instruction given to the jury to come up with answers to specific questions. Those questions on the jury’s instructions requested them to consider only nominal damage because the judge made the ruling that Anas did not prove actual damage caused him. Therefore, Anas does not qualify for actual damage - with that, the jury were asked only to return the verdict on a nominal damage,” he narrated.

According to Okyere Darko, the jury returned with an $18million in damages – a verdict the Kennedy Agyapong legal team opposed.

“… the jury came back and returned an $18 million as the damages that Kennedy Agyapong should pay. We, Kennedy Agyapong team, immediately moved an oral motion that the jury’s verdict is in error - and that we request that the judge either mold or declare a mistrial because of an error on the part of the jury,” he stated.

He further explained that on March 18, 2025, they returned for a second phase of the damage trial where the jury were supposed to consider the punitive damage and other damages (ie the actual and nominal damages).

“The jury did that deliberation and returned a questionnaire. In that questionnaire they asked the judge that in the award of the $18 million, they considered the following: ‘we awarded 5 million dollars for actual damages, we awarded 5 million dollars for a presumed damages and we awarded 8 million for punitive damages’,” he added.

Eventually, it turned out that there was no actual damage proven by Anas Aremeyaw Anas, hence he was not eligible for damages for both actual and punitive damages.

“Mind you, there was no actual damage proven by Anas. So, in effect, the jury was in error to give that verdict - and, in the New Jersey statute, if you don’t prove an actual damage, you don’t qualify for punitive damages. So, the $8 million was also in error. The last part which is a presumed damage which constitutes nominal damages (a small amount of money awarded to a plaintiff in a lawsuit to show he/she was right but suffered no substantial harm) in New Jersey law is only up to just $500,” he explained.

Okyere Darko clarified that his team decided that they would go for a molding of the jury’s verdict instead of a mistrial.

The judge subsequently granted the molding of the jury’s verdict in alignment with New Jersey statutes - which resulted in the $500 to be paid as nominal damage in the case.

“So, team Kennedy moved that the verdict cannot stand. The judge called the jury and after a few deliberations dismissed the jury for their service, that was when the judge instructed the attorneys to file our argument on record and at the time, the judge did not enter any judgement. So, there was no judgement until yesterday - that is when the official judgement came out. It gave the attorney’s the time to file our arguments and team Kennedy decided that instead of going for a mistrial …we would go for the molding of the jury’s verdict (ie to conform the verdict to the law).

“Since Anas did not prove actual damages, the jury was in error to award 5 million for actual damages - because they didn’t prove actual damages, it means he is not eligible for the punitive damages. So, the $8 million is also out - that leaves only $5million to talk about. Now, in the New Jersey statutes, if you’re only qualified for nominal damages, the limit to that award is $500. So, we asked the judge to mold the award to conform with the law and that is exactly what the judge did,” he said.

VPO/AE

Meanwhile, catch up on the concluding part of the story of Fort William, where children were sold in exchange for kitchenware, others, below: