British-based multinational Cape plc is expected to pay a first tranche of £21-million (about R336-million) in June to a trust set up to aid sufferers from asbestos-related diseases in South Africa.
The payment is part of a conditional settlement reached on December 21 last year between the company and lawyers acting for 7 500 asbestos victims in the Northern Cape and Northern Province.
The victims contracted asbestos-related diseases as a result of working at, or living in the vicinity of, Cape's former South African mines and mills. Cape also agreed to pay a further £10-million over the next 10 years.
According to London lawyer Richard Meeran, whose firm Leigh Day and Co represented the South African plaintiffs in legal actions in Britain, the settlement was unprecedented in its nature.
This has sent a clear message to multinationals that they cannot evade their responsibilities in the developing world and that they must apply the same standards of behaviour that are expected of them in the developed world.
Meeran arrives in South Africa on Sunday to meet plaintiffs and inform them about the details of the settlement, as well as to see to the establishment of the Hendrik Afrika trust fund, which will administer the money and make payouts to victims.
Meeran said the maximum payment would be for victims of mesothelioma (the fatal asbestos-related cancer of the lining of the lungs). They will each receive £5 250.
The settlement is conditional on the victims undertaking not to take further action against Cape, but also conditional on the South African government agreeing not to support other victims in any possible future legal actions.
In addition, however, Cape wants an assurance from the South African government that the company will be absolved from its legal liability to rehabilitate its mine dumps in South Africa. According to Meeran, it looked probable that the conditions would be met.
He said the conditions sounded onerous, but were not the same as selling out. He added that during the legal battle there had been a very real possibility that Cape could have declared insolvency and that claimants would have got nothing.
We were walking a tightrope all the time, he said, adding that while the final settlement for individuals might not seem much, it was certainly meaningful compensation for victims in poverty-stricken areas like the Northern Cape and Northern Province.
Source: Sunday Independent, 13 January 2002
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