The lawyers of thousands of South Africans suffering from asbestos-related diseases said on Monday they would return to the United Kingdom High Court in an effort to force mining company Cape Plc to pay overdue settlement claims.
”We shall today (Monday) be notifying the UK High Court that Cape has failed to… honour the settlement reached in December 2001, and requesting an urgent hearing for the court to make directions for trial,” legal counsel Richard Meeran of the firm Leigh Day & Co said in a statement from London.
Cape Plc mined asbestos in the Northern Cape and Limpopo for 90 years up to 1979. Thousands of people have been suffering from asbestos-related diseases since, and about 7000 instituted a claim for compensation against the company.
In terms of the settlement reached in December last year, Cape was to pay compensation to the amount of UK21-million (about R345-million at the current exchange rate), of which UK11-million was supposed to have been paid by June 30 this year.
The June 30 deadline passed without payment, and the claimants’ lawyers subsequently set another deadline of September 14, last Saturday.
”Faced with Cape’s continuing failure to pay and the continuing deaths of victims, a deadline for payment had to be set,” Meeran said on Monday.
But this also passed unheeded.
”Cape has repeatedly stated that it is committed to the settlement, but these words are no longer of any comfort to the victims,” he said.
”The victims fully intend to hold Cape to account and obtain as much money from the company as possible.”
Meeran said many claimants in the Cape case were also likely to sue Gencor, as they were exposed to the operations of its subsidiary Gefco in the late 1980s.
”Gencor has today (Monday) announced a proposed ‘unbundling’ of assets, leaving a provision of only R400-million for future claims. A legal challenge by our clients to this totally inadequate provision is imminent.”
Meeran said his firm previously represented workers who claimed compensation for mercury poisoning at a Thor Chemicals plant in KwaZulu-Natal.
Thor Chemicals had claimed an unbundling had meant it had insufficient assets to pay compensation.
”However, in August 2000, the UK Court of Appeal strongly criticised Thor over the unbundling and ordered Thor to make a payment into court.” – Sapa