Chamber asks court to stop charter for its ‘egregious overreach’
The Chamber of Mines says the Department of Mineral Resources negotiated in ‘bad faith’ by producing a third iteration of the charter with elements it had never seen
The Chamber of Mines laid out its grievances with the new Mining Charter on Monday, asking the Pretoria High Court for an urgent interdict to suspend it. The new charter was an “extremely intrusive and damaging” document, it argued. The third version of the charter had been negotiated in “bad faith”, it said, ahead of launching two court challenges. On Monday, the chamber, whose members represent 90% of SA’s annual mined value, launched a legal broadside at Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane and his department. It said he was acting beyond the powers granted to him under the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act and the charter would cause “irreparable harm”. “Extremely intrusive and damaging provisions of the 2017 charter are immediately applicable and as long as the 2017 charter remains implantable, mining companies will continue to haemorrhage value and live in an environment of acute regulatory uncertainty, which will encourage divestment and lead to further jo...
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