British company Cape Plc on Friday paid about R93-million ($12,4-million) in compensation to 7 500 South African workers who suffered a range of diseases after being exposed to asbestos at work.
The company’s lawyer handed over payment at London’s High Court, completing a compensation deal agreed in March after six years of legal wrangling.
Cape is paying about R93-million and Gencor Ltd., a South African company which took over many of Cape’s operations when it left the country at the height of apartheid in 1979, will also pay about R39,7-million ($5,3-million) to an undisclosed number of Cape claimants who were also exposed to asbestos while working for Gencor.
”The effect of this is that all matters now in this litigation have been disposed of,” said the judge, Sir Michael Wright.
Cape welcomed the settlement, but said it was not an admission of liability.
The workers — many of whom suffered from mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer believed to be linked to inhaling asbestos dust — have been fighting for compensation through the British courts since 1997. Last year, the House of Lords overturned a Court of Appeal ruling that employers could not be held liable where it was impossible to prove which exposure caused the disease.
Asbestos is a mineral that was popular as a thermal insulator.
But while manufacturers and the government were aware of the health risks associated with occupational asbestos exposure, it continued to be widely used until the mid-1970s for insulation and fireproofing.
People who were most exposed to the substance — construction workers, welders, ship builders and auto mechanics — have been increasingly diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases. It can take 50 years from the time of exposure to asbestos for the cancer to show up.
Cape mined and milled asbestos in South Africa’s Northern Cape and Limpopo provinces for over 90 years until 1979. Campaigners say South African workers were exposed to 30 times the British legal limit of asbestos dust without adequate protection. ‒ Sapa-AP