Licenced Cocoa Buyers in Ghana have run to court seeking to prohibit Joy News from broadcasting a story detailing alleged plain theft of cocoa beans.

In a case filed on Monday, February 5, 2018, the companies argue “a greater hardship will befall [them] if the documentary is left to air in its current state…”

Joy News in its latest investigative report compiled by Kwetey Nartey has documented what is suspected to be a notorious and widespread practice of deliberate adjustment of measuring scales to rob cocoa farmers of tonnes of cocoa beans.

Snippets of the documentary, coupled with a promotional video have been aired pending the broadcast of the full documentary on Joy News Television Monday evening and on Joy FM Thursday morning.

But even before then, the Licenced Cocoa Buyers Association of Ghana (LICOBAG), the Kuapa Kokoo Co-operative Cocoa Farmers and Marketing Union Ltd. (KKFU) and Kuapa Kokoo Ltd say this should not be allowed to happen.

They said if Joy News is "not restrained by the Honourable Court, the publication of the full documentary with the unfair and unverified allegations of crime made against the [companies] in the videos will work incalculable hardship on them and render it impossible for them to sell their cocoa internationally."

The three also contend that there is the "real likelihood that their certifications may be revoked or they may otherwise be blacklisted or downgraded, if the offending documentary with its defamatory contents is allowed to air in the current state. The soiling of the reputations of the" companies "will do irreversible harm to their brand integrity and ruin their business, just based on the whim of a marginal and fringe operator styling himself as an investigative journalist."

Even though none of the companies suing has been mentioned in the documentary, they insist that the words used in the promo of the documentary "refer to all the plaintiffs."

They want a declaration that those words are "defamatory, baseless, unfair, injurious, untrue, and, therefore, unlawful."

The fourth relief being sought by the cocoa buyers is "An order directed at ...[Joy News] to cease forthwith the further airing of both the full documentary and the brief teaser...on all platforms."

They are seeking general damages of one million cedis and an order of perpetual injunction restraining Joy News from broadcasting the documentary titled, "Missing Kilos." 

Commenting on the suit, private legal practitioner, Samson Lardy Anyenini, who spoke on behalf of The Multimedia Group, said the company exercising good faith and respect for the judiciary and the court process, had decided not the air the documentary.

This, he said, is in spite of the fact that there is ample legal basis to go ahead and air the documentary since a motion for injunction does not necessarily serve as an injunction unless granted by a court.