The Accra High Court has given the green light for private legal practitioner Ace Anan Ankomah to serve through substituted service a GH¢2.95 million defamation judgment on social media activist Kevin Ekow Taylor and the media outlet he runs, Loud Silence Media.
Pursuant to the court’s orders, Mr Ankomah published the notice of entry of judgment and penal notice, together with the order for substituted service, in the Saturday, August 2, 2025, issue of the Daily Graphic.
Mr Ankomah won the defamation suit against Mr Taylor in 2020 after the latter accused the lawyer of being part of a plot to discredit and disgrace Nana Appiah Mensah, the embattled Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Menzgold, the defunct company alleged to have been involved in a Ponzi scheme.
Substituted service
Substituted service is a procedure allowed under the rules of court, specifically the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rule, 2004 (C.I.47), and used to serve court processes on parties who have evaded personal service, or when it is difficult to effect personal service.
The order for substituted service was granted by the court, presided over by Justice George Aikins Ampiah-Bonney, following a motion by lawyers for Mr Ankomah, led by Thaddeus Sory.
“It is hereby ordered that the Plaintiff/Applicant has leave of the court to serve the Defendants with the entry of judgment, penal notice substituted by a one-time half-page publication in the Daily Graphic,” the court ordered.
Defamation suit
In 2019, Kevin Taylor, in one of his videos on social media, claimed that Mr Ankomah was part of a scheme by a Dubai-based minerals firm and some top members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to destroy the embattled CEO of Menzgold, Nana Appiah Mensah, also known as NAM1.
Subsequently, Mr Ankomah filed the defamation suit on the grounds that the allegation was without basis and a calculated attempt to destroy his hard-earned reputation.
Again, he said, the allegations had caused him “hatred, ridicule, discredit, contempt, vilification, reproach, great distress and emotional trauma”.
Despite numerous efforts to serve Mr Taylor, including through substituted service, he failed to attend the trial, leaving the court to enter a judgment in default of defence against the defendant.
The court, presided over by Justice Kweku T. Ackaah-Boafo, awarded damages totalling GH¢2.95 million against Mr Taylor.
The breakdown of the damages was GH¢2 million for general damages; GH¢500,000 for aggravated damages; GH¢400,000 for damages, and GH¢50,000 as costs.
The court also ordered a perpetual injunction to restrain the further publication of the material, and asked the defendants to publish an apology within 14 days, as well as a mandatory injunction compelling the defendants to remove offending material within 14 days.
In awarding the damages, the court held that it took into consideration how widely the video was circulated and the malicious nature of the accusation.
It further held that it considered “the insults to the plaintiff by other persons following the publication of the matter (naming some of those persons), Taylor’s “malevolence”, “spite”, and his “reprehensible conduct” and “egregious conduct”, and held that those attitudes “offend the court’s sense of decency”.
