South African gold producers signed Thursday a class action settlement on Thursday with law firms representing thousands of miners who contracted the fatal lung diseases silicosis and tuberculosis while working for them, the parties said.
The 5 billion rand-settlement (about $395 million at today’s exchange rate) puts an end to the country’s largest and most expensive class action against mining companies.
The document was signed by Richard Spoor Inc, Abrahams Kiewitz Inc and the Legal Resources Centre, representing the affected workers, and the Occupational Lung Disease Working Group, which acted on behalf of African Rainbow Minerals, Anglo American, AngloGold Ashanti, Gold Fields, Harmony Gold and Sibanye-Stillwater.
Most claimants are black miners from South Africa and neighbouring countries such as Lesotho, whom critics say were not provided with adequate protection during and even after the Apartheid ended in 1994.
The claims go back decades, which explains why Anglo American, which no longer has any interests in gold mining, and ARM, which no longer operates gold mines in South Africa, were named in the suit.
Research indicates the miners caught silicosis, which has no known cure, from inhaling silica dust while drilling rock. The dust lodges in the lungs and causes permanent scars.
Symptoms include persistent coughing and shortness of breath, and the disease regularly leads to tuberculosis and death.
More to come…
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