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The Court of Ap­peal has up­held a low­er court rul­ing award­ing En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter, Dr. Roodal Mooni­lal, TT$475,000 (One TT dol­lar=US$0.16 cents) in dam­ages over a news­pa­per ar­ti­cle pub­lished in May and June 2016.

In ad­di­tion, the Court of Ap­peal has or­dered free­lance colum­nist Juli­et Davy to pay $69,000 in costs, as well as an ad­di­tion­al TT$46,000 for costs re­lat­ed to the ap­peal.

The ar­ti­cle was pub­lished in the now de­funct T&T Mir­ror news­pa­per in May and June 2016, and ref­er­enced a list cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia that claimed Mooni­lal was the fourth-rich­est per­son in the coun­try, with a net worth of TT$2.58 bil­lion. The list was nev­er proven to be re­al, and no ev­i­dence was pre­sent­ed to show Mooni­lal had such wealth.