Fed tests gold upleg
Gold’s outlook and fundamentals remain really bullish.
South Africa’s top gold mining companies will appeal against a recent court ruling allowing the country’s biggest-ever class action to go ahead, a lawyer for the miners said on Friday.
The firms, reports Reuters, will dispute the High Court decision to let up to half a million current and former miners proceed with their multi-million-dollar suit, which seeks compensation for those who contracted the fatal lung diseases silicosis and tuberculosis while working for the companies.
While the companies deny liability for the claims, they said they prefer a fair and sustainable settlement over a long and protracted litigation.
Anglo American (LON:AAL), Africa’s top bullion producer AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU), Harmony Gold (NYSE:HMY), Gold Fields (NYSE, JSE:GFI), Sibanye Gold (NYSE:SBGL) (JSE:SGL), and African Rainbow Minerals (JSE:ARI) formed last year a group to look at compensation and medical care for workers who acquired occupational lung disease, also known as silicosis.
The alliance confirmed Friday its members had filed individual applications to appeal last month’s ruling, adding that each of them have been seeking a settlement with the affected workers.
“Whilst the companies deny liability for the claims, it is nonetheless the working group’s view that a fair and sustainable settlement is preferable to long and protracted litigation,” the group said in a statement, according to Reuters.
Incurable disease
The claims go back decades, which explain why Anglo American, which no longer has any interests in gold mining, and African Rainbow Minerals, which no longer operates gold mines, were named in the suits.
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.
The suit, first filed in 2012, alleges the named companies knew of the dangers posed to miners by silica dust for more than a century and lists 12 specific forms of neglect and endangerment, including wilfully ignoring and/or failing to execute almost all of the recommended steps mandated in regulations and legislation designed to protect the miners from silica dust.
