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11 August, 2005ICEM News release No. 84/2001
A "constructive dialogue" has been launched between asbestos multinational Cape plc and British lawyers acting for victims of the company's South African operations.
This is the first hint of progress in the long battle to win compensation for the South Africans.
Cape and the victims' English solicitors, Leigh Day & Co, have announced that "the case management hearing (at which the court is to give directions for the trial in April 2002) scheduled to commence on 5th November 2001, has been postponed for 14 days as the parties wish to engage in constructive dialogue. Both parties believe this will be a positive step forward."
This move comes just days after a management shake-up at Cape. On 1 November, the Montpellier Group increased their stake to 29.9 percent, making them Cape's biggest shareholder. Michael Langdon, the previous Chairman of Cape, then stood down and was replaced by Montpellier's Managing Director, Paul Sellars.
As well as fighting the case through the English courts, the asbestos victims have been backed by a number of campaigning organisations, including the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), its South African affiliate the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), and ICEM-affiliated British unions.
Cape mined asbestos in South Africa for almost a century. "Children were employed, unprotected, in the most hazardous tasks of sorting asbestos with their bare hands and trampling it with their bare feet," recalled ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in letters last month to Montpellier and other major shareholders. "Due to the atrocious conditions at the mines and mills, thousands of South Africans developed the fatal asbestos cancer, mesothelioma, and the debilitating disease of asbestosis."
This is the first hint of progress in the long battle to win compensation for the South Africans.
Cape and the victims' English solicitors, Leigh Day & Co, have announced that "the case management hearing (at which the court is to give directions for the trial in April 2002) scheduled to commence on 5th November 2001, has been postponed for 14 days as the parties wish to engage in constructive dialogue. Both parties believe this will be a positive step forward."
This move comes just days after a management shake-up at Cape. On 1 November, the Montpellier Group increased their stake to 29.9 percent, making them Cape's biggest shareholder. Michael Langdon, the previous Chairman of Cape, then stood down and was replaced by Montpellier's Managing Director, Paul Sellars.
As well as fighting the case through the English courts, the asbestos victims have been backed by a number of campaigning organisations, including the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), its South African affiliate the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), and ICEM-affiliated British unions.
Cape mined asbestos in South Africa for almost a century. "Children were employed, unprotected, in the most hazardous tasks of sorting asbestos with their bare hands and trampling it with their bare feet," recalled ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs in letters last month to Montpellier and other major shareholders. "Due to the atrocious conditions at the mines and mills, thousands of South Africans developed the fatal asbestos cancer, mesothelioma, and the debilitating disease of asbestosis."