SA company wins $430m platinum mine fight

The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has thwarted attempts by a Chinese-owned company to claim mineral rights in Limpopo Province worth billions of rands. It has ordered that the rights for the mineral-rich Ga-Ratouw community must revert to the SA Government, as the Department of Mineral Resources & Energy had not approved their transfer to Nkwe Platinum. The ruling follows a bitter legal battle between Nkwe Platinum – majority owned by China’s Zijin Mining – and its long-time local partner Genorah Resources over what would be one of the 10 richest platinum mines in the world. Nkwe merged with a subsidiary of Zijin Mining to form another company with the same name – Nkwe Platinum – which is registered in Bermuda. Zijin told the Sunday Times it would appeal the judgment. Genorah approached the court in 2021, arguing that the registration of the new company, with the same name and registration number, was a way to deceptively house $430m worth of mining rights in a company over which only the Chinese have control. Genorah’s 26% of the rights was worth R2bn and the old Nkwe owned the rest. The Sunday Times reports that the new Nkwe is 100% owned by Zijin. In her ruling, Judge Selemeng Mokose said if the court were to agree with the Nkwe’s interpretation, foreign-registered companies would retain their mining rights in SA even after deregistration where there has been an amalgamation. She said she agreed with Genorah that SA’s BEE objectives ‘would not be achieved by a foreign company that has ceased to exist as a result of deregistration under a foreign statute’.