Le Seychellois Hebdo apologises to STC, but not as expected |19 December 2015

The Seychelles Trading Company (STC) has said it is unhappy with how Le Seychellois Hebdo newspaper has treated the publication of apologies in its edition of Thursday December 17, 2015 regarding a case which dates back to July 2013.

The following is the apology Le Seychellois Hebdo had to publish and which it did: “Le Seychellois Hebdo wishes to apologise to the Seychelles Trading Company Limited (STC) for an article in its edition of 5 July 2013 ‘STC sells expired goods’. The article, which claimed that tins of sliced beetroot which had expired since May 2013 were being sold by the supermarket, was corrected in the edition of the newspaper the following week where the finding of the Fair Trading Commission stating that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by STC was published. Le Seychellois Hebdo regrets the error in its article, which proceeded from wrong information received from a customer.”

But the STC is challenging Le Seychellois Hebdo for publishing the apology in a small corner when it should be big and also for repeating the news contained in the original article.

Representing STC, lawyer S. Rajasundaram wrote to the editor of Le Seychellois Hebdo on December 17, 2015 saying his “client would not hesitate to prompt another legal action if the news article in your edition dated 17th December 2015 is not withdrawn in its entirety”.

STC believes that for repeating the same story published in its edition of July 5, 2013 alongside the apologies Le Seychellois Hebdo “is not only misleading but intentionally repeats the news as if STC compromised its position”.

According to the lawyer, the newspaper has in its story entitled ‘STC and LSH reach agreement over misunderstanding’ “once again published the news article on the pretext of giving the background” …. “and we could see malicious acts and intentional attempt to defame my client”.

“There is no necessity at all to repeat the news along with the publication of apologies. My client has never compromised its position in terms of the facts of your first article,” adds the letter.
“...You accepted to sign a judgment by consent seeing the error on your part but the current article misleads the public again,” writes Mr Rajasundaram who adds that his client is warning the newspaper to desist from causing any misleading articles in the future.

The publication of apologies by Le Seychellois Hebdo was pursuant to a court order dated November 18, 2015 based on the judgment by consent duly signed by all the parties and the counsel for the respective parties.

Le Seychellois Hebdo also has to pay for all the court fees that STC has paid.

STC also believes that Le Seychellois Hebdo waited until the day before the election to put out this misleading article and that if it was sincere, it would have done so much earlier and according to what was agreed.