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Gold Fields faces $7bn uranium exposure suit
By Nicol Degli Innocenti in Johannesburg
Published: May 4 2003 19:13 | Last Updated: May 5 2003 8:26


Lawyers acting on behalf of more than 500 former employees of Gold Fields, South Africa's second largest gold producer, will file a suit on Monday in New York seeking damages of up to $7bn.


The case will be brought by Ed Fagan, a US lawyer, and John Ngcebetsha, a South African, and will seek compensation for the alleged exposure of"former employees to dangerous working conditions leading to uranium contamination".

"Some workers died because of the uranium contaminated water," Mr Ngcebetsha said on Friday."Gold Fields appears to have cared more about profits than about employees."

Gold Fields, which has a secondary listing in New York, said it was taking the lawsuit"seriously" and would"strenuously defend" it. The company confirmed it had received a letter from the lawyers but declined their request for a meeting.

Gold Fields is the latest in a string of international companies that have been targeted by the Fagan/Ngcebetsha team for allegedly unfair treatment of workers during the apartheid years.

Mr Fagan became famous in 1998 when he forced Swiss banks into a $1.25bn settlement on behalf of victims of the Holocaust. The first hearing for the $100bn apartheid reparations case against more than 60 companies is scheduled for May 19 in New York's Southern District Court.

Mr Fagan and Mr Ngcebetsha last month filed a lawsuit against AngloAmerican, the resources group, and De Beers, the diamond producer, seeking damages of up to $6.1bn for"repressing workers" and benefiting from the cheap labour guaranteed under apartheid.

Gold Fields said - just as AngloAmerican did last month - that it did not recognise the jurisdiction of the US courts.

The case against Gold Fields is different in that it does not refer to apartheid reparations, Mr Ngcebetsha said on Friday, but stems from complaints received from workers employed in the 1980s and 1990s. Some unlawful practices"were not changed even after 1994", he said, and"continue to the present".

Other gold mining companies could be involved in the lawsuit, as uranium is often mined as a byproduct of gold in South Africa.

The Council for Nuclear Safety estimates that more than 10,000 mineworkers have been exposed to unsafe radiation levels. The Institute for Water Quality Studies in 1996 found that water near gold mining activities was"unsuitable" for drinking due to the"levels of the radioactive uranium and radium".

Under the US Alien Tort Claims Act, foreign citizens can file claims regarding human rights abuses against companies that do business in the US.







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PS: Ich meine hier wird wieder einmal viel, sehr viel, nachgefragt und
am Schluss werden es vielleicht 5 - 7 % der ursprünglichen Summe sein.
Ueberall dieselbe Taktik, warum nicht auch hier.

Emerald.