Lawyers for miners suffering from asbestos-related illnesses said on Tuesday they would seek to launch an interdict next week in a bid to prevent South African company Gencor from unwinding its main asset.
Lawyer Richard Spoor slammed Gencor’s announcement on Monday that the mining holding company would distribute its 46% stake in Impala Platinum — its last remaining asset — to shareholders on November 4, before winding up its operations.
”We think it is inconceivable that the company will be allowed to unbundle in the face of a very strong case and sizeable potential liability before this matter in tested in a court of law,” said Spoor.
”We expect that we will file the interdict late next week. We are very confident that the unbundling will not take place.”
Gencor shareholders are due to meet on October 2 to vote on the share distribution.
The move had been expected, but Spoor has vowed to prevent Gencor from unwinding the stake, valued at about R17,9-billion, in a bid to settle R37-million claims from former employees of Gencor’s asbestos operations.
Gencor, which owned asbestos companies Gefco and Msauli from the early 1960s and sold them in 1988, on Monday again dismissed liability in South African law for any of the claims contained in each of Spoor’s 37 summonses.
The company said it had R409-million in cash reserves that it would use, among other things, to defend the 37 summonses and to cover any other potential liabilities.
Spoor said he could be joined in next week’s interdict by lawyers for former employees of London-listed Cape Plc, which once owned asbestos operations close to Gencor’s mines in South Africa.
”They might join us in this application. We’re hoping they will,” he said.
Lawyer Richard Meeran, representing former Cape employees, warned in July and again on Monday he had his sights on Gencor, and criticised the South African company’s intentions to unwind.
”Urgent steps are to be taken in connection with Gencor. Very many of the claimants in the Cape claim were also exposed to the operations of Gefco,” the London-based Meeran said.
”Gencor is likely to be sued by the claimants in the Cape claim,” he added.
Meeran won an out-of-court settlement from Cape on December 21 to pay 21-million pounds to 7 500 South African miners who blame the building materials firm for asbestos-related diseases they contracted in the 1970s.
Meeran said on Monday he was taking Cape back to court after it missed a September 14 deadline to pay the first 11-million pound instalment of the settlement.
Asbestos can cause a range of diseases, including asbestosis, which destroys the lungs and eventually kills its victims. It can take decades to become apparent. People can also develop deadly cancerous tumours from inhaling the fibres. – Reuters