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See also other materials on "Mining industry"

See also the following sections of this website:

• Lawsuits & regulatory action against companies

General:

• S. African gold firm faces $7 billion suit - Workers at South Africa's second-largest gold mining company [Gold Fields] were tortured, enslaved and poisoned with uranium, according to a $7.4-billion lawsuit filed late on Tuesday in a New York court...In the suit, Mtwesi alleged he and others were "tortured, enslaved, subjected to unfair and discriminatory Slave or Forced Labor practices (and) exposed to toxic and dangerous chemicals, fumes, substances and radioactive materials." (Jeanne King, Reuters, 7 May 2003)

  • Archbishop steps into mining case [South Africa] - In a strange twist mining company Gold Fields yesterday confirmed it had been approached to meet Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Njongonkulu Ndungane to try to resolve the claims brought against it for alleged prejudice during the apartheid years. The archbishop was said to be approaching all the mining companies named in the apartheid suits, which have total possible claims of $15 billion against them, to try to resolve the matter before it reached the courts. (Sherilee Bridge, Business Report, 7 May 2003)
  • Workers file $7bn uranium lawsuit - South African mining group Gold Fields faces a $7bn (£4.4bn) legal challenge [in a New York court] from former workers, who claim they were contaminated by uranium and have now fallen ill. (BBC News, 5 May 2003)
  • Gold Fields faces uranium exposure lawsuit -...Gold Fields said - just as AngloAmerican did last month - that it did not recognise the jurisdiction of the US courts...Under the US Alien Tort Claims Act, foreign citizens can file claims regarding human rights abuses against companies that do business in the US. (Nicol Degli Innocenti, Financial Times, 5 May 2003)
  • Gold Fields, the second-largest gold producer in South Africa, will vigorously defend a lawsuit brought against to it by the company's former employees, said company officials on Monday. (South African Press Association, 5 May 2003)

• Gold Fields faces $7bn uranium exposure suit - 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. (Nicol Degli Innocenti, Financial Times, 4 May 2003)

  • Gold Fields is facing lawsuit for subhuman' working conditions - The apartheid claims task force says it will file a lawsuit for billions of dollars in New York against SA [South African] gold mining company Gold Fields for making blacks work under "subhuman" conditions. (Business Day [South Africa], 2 May 2003)
  • Class action suit filed against Gold Fields (South African Broadcasting Corporation, 2 May 2003)
  • Gold Fields dismisses lawsuit threats - Bullion producer Gold Fields Ltd said on Friday it would "strenuously defend" itself against a threatened lawsuit seeking damages of up to $7-billion for workers who say they were unfairly treated. (Hilary Gush, Reuters, 2 May 2003) 

• Investors barrack Rio Tinto bosses -...Rio Tinto was barracked by small shareholders and special interest groups at an annual meeting that marked a bad-tempered send-off for chairman Sir Robert...The mining group was attacked over pension issues, alleged safety problems in Utah and for not making provisions for a number of legal cases being taken out against it..."The [UK] government must change company law to ensure the directors of irresponsible companies like Rio Tinto are made fully liable and accountable for their destructive impact overseas," said Friends of the Earth campaigner Ed Matthew. (Terry Macalister, Guardian [UK], 18 Apr. 2003)

  • Rio Tinto exposed for mining impacts in Indonesia - Rio Tinto, the world's biggest mining company, will come under attack at its annual general meeting today for human rights abuses and environmental destruction linked to its operations in Indonesia. The allegations are outlined in a new report from Friends of the Earth Indonesia (WALHI), "Undermining Indonesia", launched today, which investigates the impacts of four of Rio Tinto's most controversial mining operations. (Friends of the Earth, 17 Apr. 2003)

• {···français} Apartheid: des firmes sommées de réparer - Des plaignants sud-africains réclament des milliards de dollars ( Sabine Cessou, Libération, 12 avril 2003)

• Gencor mum on asbestos case [South Africa] - Gencor, the mining holding company, said that until it had papers served upon it in South Africa, it had no comment on the decision by the English High Court to include Gencor as a co-defendant in the asbestos case of Cape plc, the UK building materials company. (Justin Brown, Business Day [South Africa], 16 Oct. 2002)

  • Miners take Cape Plc back to court [South Africa/UK] - Lawyers for sick South African miners said on Monday they would return to court in London on Tuesday in a bid to get building materials firm Cape Plc to honour a settlement it reached with former employees. (Reuters, 14 Oct. 2002)

• Alaska villagers sue Teck Cominco over pollution [USA] - Residents of Kivilina, an Inupiat Eskimo village on Alaska's northwestern coast, sued Teck Cominco Ltd. , charging the company with 2,171 federal water-pollution violations at its Red Dog Mine, the world's largest zinc producer. (Yereth Rosen, Reuters, 23 Sep. 2002)

• Corporate Human Rights -...For several years, a small group of lawyers and labor advocates has been trying to hold transnational companies responsible for their actions by suing them in the United States for abetting and/or benefiting from human rights abuses overseas. Finally, these corporation-chasers are beginning to see signs of possible success. [refers to lawsuits against Unocal, Shell, Texaco, Rio Tinto, Coca-Cola, Del Monte, DynCorp, Drummond Company, ExxonMobil] (David Corn, The Nation, 15 July 2002)

• Plight of Peru town dim after mine's mercury spill -...Chuquitucto blames her blindness on the June 2000 spill from one of the world's top gold mines, Yanacocha, an environmental disaster that has prompted villagers to file a lawsuit in Colorado against Denver-based Newmont Minerals. (Missy Ryan, Reuters, 3 July 2002)

• 36 asbestos claims cite Gencor as a defendant [South Africa] - Summonses on behalf of 36 former asbestos workers were issued in the Johannesburg high court yesterday against four mining companies [African Crysotile Asbestos, Msauli Asbes, Gencor and Hanova Mining]...for damages amounting to R25 million for asbestos-related illnesses. (Ronnie Morris, Business Report [South Africa], 22 May 2002)

• The Big Ugly at Ok Tedi:  In an extraordinary move, the Papua New Guinea (PNG) government has passed legislation that prevents any government agency from taking or supporting “in any way” proceedings against the mining multinational BHP-Billiton “in respect of an environmental claim” over damage caused by the Ok Tedi mine. (Bob Burton, editor of Mining Monitor, in Multinational Monitor, Jan./Feb. 2002)

  • company website: Ok Tedi Mining (OK Tedi Mining Limited)
   
• Steelworkers demand public inquiry into fatal explosion at Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting [Canada]: Following last week’s guilty plea by Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co., Limited (HBM&S) to keeping an unsafe workplace, the United Steelworkers is asking Premier Doer to order a public inquiry into the furnace explosion that killed Steve Ewing and injured 13 others workers on Aug. 8, 2000. (United Steelworkers [Canada], 7 Dec. 2001)

• Litigation Update: A Summary of Recent Developments in U.S. Cases Brought Under the Alien Tort Claims Act and Torture Protection Act [includes update on lawsuits against Rio Tinto for conduct in Papua New Guinea and Southern Peru Copper Corporation for conduct in Peru] (Jennifer Green [staff attorney at Center for Constitutional Rights] and Paul Hoffman [civil rights attorney and editor of ACLU International Civil Liberties Report], in ACLU International Civil Liberties Report 2001 [American Civil Liberties Union], Dec. 2001)

• Woodstock company charged with 20 environmental offences in the town of Kearney [Ontario, Canada]: International Graphite Inc. has been charged with a total of 20 counts for failing to comply with a certificate of approval and failing to comply with a control order at the Kearney Graphite Mine (Canada NewsWire, 26 Sep. 2001)

BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary) mine: Ok Tedi [ Papua New Guinea]:

• The Big Ugly at Ok Tedi:  In an extraordinary move, the Papua New Guinea (PNG) government has passed legislation that prevents any government agency from taking or supporting “in any way” proceedings against the mining multinational BHP-Billiton “in respect of an environmental claim” over damage caused by the Ok Tedi mine. (Bob Burton, editor of Mining Monitor, in Multinational Monitor, Jan./Feb. 2002)

  • company website: Ok Tedi Mining (OK Tedi Mining Limited)

• Outrage At Png Attempt To Give BHP A Royal Farewell [Papua New Guinea]:...After permitting the company to dump 80,000 tonnes of waste a day into the Fly and Ok Tedi river system since 1984 BHP has now been given a final gift from the PNG National Government - an unrestricted legal indemnity for all the pollution and destruction it has already caused and will occur in the future as result of the continuing operation of its Ok Tedi mine. It has precipitated an unprecedented constitutional challenge by former PNG Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare. (Mineral Policy Institute and PNG NGO Environmental Watch Group, 12 Dec. 2001)

  • company website: Ok Tedi Mining (OK Tedi Mining Limited)

• Landowners blockade BHP's rat run from Ok Tedi [Papua New Guinea]: A group of women and children landowners have shut down operations at BHP Billitons' Ok Tedi Mine in Papua New Guinea. The landowners have staged a sit-down, blocking a bridge leading to the mine site, allowing mine workers to leave but not to enter the site. They have been protesting for two days over legislation apparently designed to absolve BHP of its liability for environmental damage. Damage from the mine is extremely severe and will last for the better part of this century. It is destroying food, fisheries and the forests on which people living along the Fly River (Mineral Policy Institute, 26 Nov. 2001)

• BHP Billiton eyes Ok Tedi environment funds [Papua New Guinea]: BHP Billiton said yesterday it would make sure money was available for mine closure and environmental remediation before it moved its 52 percent stake in Papua New Guinea's Ok Tedi copper mine into a trust. (Reuters, 17 Oct. 2001)

• Inmet says Ok Tedi copper investment preserved [Papua New Guinea]: Inmet Mining Corp., an 18 percent stakeholder in the Ok Tedi copper-gold mine in Papua New Guinea, said yesterday it was pleased with an in-principle deal that would allow the project's operator BHP Billiton to exit the environmentally challenged mine. The government of Papua New Guinea said overnight that BHP's 52 percent stake will be put into an arm's length trust which would hold the interest on behalf of the Western Province and the nation. (Lesley Wroughton, Reuters, 28 Sep. 2001)

• BHP Walkout Leaves Threat Of Ok Tedi Environmental Refugees [Papua New Guinea]: The BHP Billiton agreement to exit its Ok Tedi mine leaves Australia facing a potential environmental refugee crisis less than one hundred kilometres from mainland Australia. BHP Billiton and the Papua New Guinea (PNG) government have agreed basic conditions for the company to get out of the Ok Tedi copper mine. At the same time damage from the mine is extremely severe and will last for the better part of this century. It is destroying food, fisheries and the forests which people living along the Fly River in PNG just to the north of Australia rely on. (Mineral Policy Institute, 27 Sep. 2001)

  • company website: Ok Tedi Mining (OK Tedi Mining Limited)

• Victoria court sets path for PNG Ok Tedi lawsuit: The Supreme Court of Victoria [Australia] yesterday gave Papua New Guinea landowners until January 7 to decide if they would participate in a class action surrounding the controversial Ok Tedi copper mine. The court said the class action should be advertised in PNG newspapers, on radio and at public meetings, with the onus on landowners to opt-out if they do not want to participate in the class action. Landowners won a settlement against Ok Ted Mining Ltd in 1996 for environmental damage caused by tailings from the mine. But they launched a new case in April last year arguing that OTML and BHP Ltd, now BHP Billiton Ltd/Plc had not lived up to promises to find a safer way of disposing of mine tailings. (Reuters, 28 Aug. 2001)

• PNG landowners demand Australia fund mine clean-up: Landowners in Papua New Guinea called on Australia yesterday to pay the bill for what they called environmental destruction caused by BHP's Ok Tedi copper mine if the company walked away without cleaning up (Gary Cox, Reuters, 27 June 2001) 

• 500 PNG clans join Ok Tedi suit against BHP (Barry Fitzgerald, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 2000)

• comments by advocates for plaintiffs: Ok Tedi 2 (Slater and Gordon, solicitors for plaintiffs, 11 Apr. 2000) 

• comments by Broken Hill Proprietary: Legal Action on Ok Tedi Misconceived: BHP (BHP, 11 Apr. 2000)

• BHP's Big Mining Mess (Danny Kennedy, Multinational Monitor, Apr. 2000)

• Writ lodged over BHP Ok Tedi mine (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 11 Apr. 2000)

• World Bank echoes calls for Ok Tedi closure (Mineral Policy Institute, 7 Mar. 2000) 

  • World Bank - Full Ok Tedi Report

• OK Tedi (Slater & Gordon, solicitors for plaintiffs)

• One of World's Worst Mine Disasters Gets Worse (Mineral Policy Center, Mining Watch Canada, Mine Watch UK, 11 Aug. 1999)

• Statement by Papua New Guinea groups on Ok Tedi (August 1999)

• Abstract: The Ok Tedi Settlement: Issues, Outcomes and Implications (Glenn Banks and Chris Ballard, 1997)

• Cleaning up Ok Tedi: Settlement Favors Yonggom People (Stuart Kirsch, Journal of the International Institute, vol. 4, no. 1, fall 1996) 

• OK Tedi Truce (Mining Monitor, vol. 1, no. 3, 1996)

Cambior: case in Canada court regarding the company's conduct in Guyana: 

• comments by advocates for plaintiffs: 

  • A background report: The Omai Gold Mine Disaster (Public Interest Research Associates/Recherches Internationales Québec, 30 Mar. 1997)

  • Guyana Legal Defense Fund (26 Mar. 1997)

• comments by Cambior: Cambior secures dismissal of Omai-related class action (Cambior, 17 Aug. 1998)

• Recent news articles and letters to editor regarding Omai gold mine case (S.D. Smith, Guiana Shield, Aug. 1999)

• Cambior case a battle of witnesses (Philip Preville, Montreal Mirror, 3 Sep. 1998)

• Canadian Mining Company Taken to Court (Inter Press Service, 23 June 1998)

• Mining spill? What mining spill? (Francois Shalom, The Gazette [Montreal], 3 June 1998)

Freeport-McMoRan: case in U.S. court regarding the company's conduct in West Papua (Indonesia):

• full text of class action complaint in case of Beanal v. Freeport-McMoRan (29 April 1996)

• full text of Appellate Court's decision affirming lower court's dismissal of Beanal's claims (29 Nov. 1999)

• Speech by plaintiff Tom Beanal (at Loyola University, 28 Apr. 1997, in Austin Chronicle)

• comments by Freeport-McMoRan:

  • Freeport in Irian Jaya (Papua): A Summary of Recent Issues - August 17, 2001 (Freeport-McMoRan)

  • Issues & Answers: Legal Issues (Freeport-McMoRan)

• West Papua Information Kit: "Mining" (Australia West Papua Association, Sydney)

• Indonesia uses British jets to attack tribesmen (Richard Lloyd Parry, Independent [UK], 7 Oct. 2000)

• What's Yours Is Mine [reporting on memorandum of understanding between Tom Benal and Freeport's CEO] (Robert Bryce, Austin Chronicle, 1 Sep. 2000)

• Freeport-McMoRan: A Pit of Trouble - Can the miners make peace with critics of its West Papua operation? (Business Week, 31 July 2000)

• Beanal v. Freeport-McMoran, Inc.: ANATOMY OF AN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL TORT CASE (Ethan Jessup, New England International & Comparative Law Annual, Vol. 5, 1999)

• Mining for Disaster (Robert Bryce, Austin Chronicle, 10 Dec. 1999)

• Scraping Bottom: Freeport McMoRan in Irian Jaya (NGO Taskforce on Business and Industry, 1997)

• Spinning Gold (Robert Bryce, Mother Jones, Sep./Oct. 1996)

  • Freeport-McMoRan's response: Who's Spinning Whom? (in "Backtalk", Mother Jones, Nov./Dec. 1996)

• From Austin to Indonesia: Independent Reports on Human Rights Abuses by the Suharto Regime Come Home to Texas (Robert Bryce, Texas Observer, 17 Nov. 1995)

  • Freeport-McMoRan's response: Letter to the Observer Editors (from Thomas Egan, Senior Vice President, Freeport-McMoRan, in Texas Observer, 12 Jan. 1996)

  • The Observer Editors Respond to Freeport (Texas Observer, 12 Jan. 1996)

  • Freeport writes a letter (letter to the Editors, from Thomas Egan, Senior Vice President, Freeport-McMoRan, in Texas Observer, 14 June 1996)

  • Primitive People: The Editors respond to Freeport. (Again.) (Texas Observer, 14 June 1996)

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mistubishi International, Mitsui & Co., Mitsui Mining, Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Nippon Steel, and other Japanese companies: case in U.S. court regarding alleged forced labour by prisoners of war in Asia/Pacific during World War II:

• Senate urges government to negotiate for World War II prisoners [regarding lawsuits against Japanese companies] (Associated Press, CNN.com, 1 Nov. 2000)

• U.S. Litigation Concerning Japanese Forced Labor in World War II (David Caron and Adam Schneider, ASIL Insight, American Society of International Law, Oct. 2000)

• Slave Wages: Those forced to labor for Japan in World War II are now suing in California courts (Bernice Yeung, SFWeekly.com, 5 July 2000)

• Lawsuits to seek billions in compensation from Japanese corporations that used slave laborers during WWII (PR Newswire, 22 Feb. 2000)

Rio Tinto: case in U.S. court regarding the company's conduct in Bougainville - Papua New Guinea:

• Investors barrack Rio Tinto bosses -...Rio Tinto was barracked by small shareholders and special interest groups at an annual meeting that marked a bad-tempered send-off for chairman Sir Robert...The mining group was attacked over pension issues, alleged safety problems in Utah and for not making provisions for a number of legal cases being taken out against it..."The [UK] government must change company law to ensure the directors of irresponsible companies like Rio Tinto are made fully liable and accountable for their destructive impact overseas," said Friends of the Earth campaigner Ed Matthew. (Terry Macalister, Guardian [UK], 18 Apr. 2003)

  • Rio Tinto exposed for mining impacts in Indonesia - Rio Tinto, the world's biggest mining company, will come under attack at its annual general meeting today for human rights abuses and environmental destruction linked to its operations in Indonesia. The allegations are outlined in a new report from Friends of the Earth Indonesia (WALHI), "Undermining Indonesia", launched today, which investigates the impacts of four of Rio Tinto's most controversial mining operations. (Friends of the Earth, 17 Apr. 2003)

• Corporate Human Rights -...For several years, a small group of lawyers and labor advocates has been trying to hold transnational companies responsible for their actions by suing them in the United States for abetting and/or benefiting from human rights abuses overseas. Finally, these corporation-chasers are beginning to see signs of possible success. [refers to lawsuits against Unocal, Shell, Texaco, Rio Tinto, Coca-Cola, Del Monte, DynCorp, Drummond Company, ExxonMobil] (David Corn, The Nation, 15 July 2002)

• Litigation Update: A Summary of Recent Developments in U.S. Cases Brought Under the Alien Tort Claims Act and Torture Protection Act [includes update on lawsuit against Rio Tinto for conduct in Papua New Guinea] (Jennifer Green [staff attorney at Center for Constitutional Rights] and Paul Hoffman [civil rights attorney and editor of ACLU International Civil Liberties Report], in ACLU International Civil Liberties Report 2001 [American Civil Liberties Union], Dec. 2001)

• "Oceanic Islanders Use Federal Law to Sue British Mining Giant Rio Tinto for Alleged Ecocide and Human Rights Crimes" (Business Wire, 6 Sep. 2000)