In the Mail&Guardian of May 24 an article was published concerning the claim by South African asbestos victims against Cape plc.
The article made certain untrue statements concerning the payment of Leigh Day & Co’s legal costs and their handling of the case, over which the M&G would like to apologise. The M&G regrets the insinuation that Leigh Day & Co acted in anything other than a responsible, professional and ethical manner towards their clients.
The M&G and the authors of the article apologise unreservedly to Leigh Day & Co for the statements made, which suggested that Leigh Day acted unethically and irresponsibly in relation to the payment of their legal costs in this case. We acknowledge that these statements were incorrect. The M&G would like to emphasise that the payment of legal costs will be met without any need for deductions from the claimants’ compensation totalling approximately 21-million British pounds. We acknowledge that Leigh Day & Co and the South African government fought hard and succeeded in ensuring that legal costs would not impact on the claimants’ compensation. We were wrong to suggest otherwise.
The M&G also acknowledges that the article incorrectly stated that Leigh Day & Co had neglected to inform the claimants of the terms of settlement. In January 2002 representatives of Leigh Day & Co held community meetings for the purposes of explaining the terms of the settlement to the claimants.
The M&G further acknowledges that it was wrong not to provide Leigh Day & Co with the opportunity to comment on the allegation that 40% of the victims are unlikely to be compensated by the Trust and it was wrong to criticise Leigh Day & Co for not informing the claimants of this. There is no reason to believe that the failure rate will be of this magnitude or that Leigh Day & Co did not do whatever they could to keep claimants fully informed. Nevertheless, as in any personal-injury case, the Trust will have eligibility criteria that will determine who is compensated and how much they receive. For instance, claimants without medical evidence of an asbestos-related disease will not be compensated. Claimants will also have to show exposure to a former Cape plc operation.
The M&G regrets the false and inappropriate language used in the article and apologises unreservedly to Leigh Day & Co and their clients for the offence and distress caused.
Signed: Howard Barrell, editor, Mail&Guardian, and Sizwe samaYende and Justin Arenstein, African Eye News Service.