Chamber of Mines asks for ruling on black ownership

Johannesburg - The Chamber of Mines said it asked the High Court to rule whether companies can claim to have met black-ownership rules even after shareholders have sold their stake in assets.

The chamber, which represents operators including Anglo American [JSE:AGL] and Sibanye Gold [JSE:SGL], will be the applicant in the case while the Department of Mineral Resources will act as respondent after the parties initially agreed to approach the court together amid a dispute over how to interpret the laws, the lobby said on Friday in an e-mailed statement.

“The legal mechanism available to the parties necessitates a clear applicant and respondent, with an identifiable and clear point of dispute,” it said. “A joint application, by definition, suggests some form of agreement between the parties.”

The dispute over the ownership of mines came after SA enacted regulations in 2004 compelling operators to sell 26% of their local assets to black South Africans by the end of 2014 as a way of redressing economic disparities.

Some investors that acquired empowerment stakes subsequently sold them, diluting the companies’ black shareholding.

While 90% of the industry, weighted by the number of people employed, has met the requirement for 26% of shareholders being from historically disadvantaged groups, this has mostly been achieved by selling stakes to “one or two” people, rather than involving communities or employees, the mines ministry said on May 14.

Only 20% of the industry “fulfilled the full requirement of meaningful economic participation,” it said.