Mining charter amounts to expropriation legal claim
The Italian owners of two granite firms that are suing SA for 266m (about R2.5bn), arguing that laws which force firms to sell stakes to black investors violated international investment treaties, is in effect the first legal action alleging SAs mining charter amounts to expropriation.
We are saying that these Italian investors are unfairly discriminated against in relation to BEE investors in SA, lawyer Peter Leon is quoted as saying in a report on the Mail & Guardian Online site. After unsuccessfully seeking compensation from the government, the two Italian-owned firms Finstone group and RED Graniti Spa have been granted compulsory international arbitration by an arm of the World Bank, he said. Leon said the legal action was not challenging the overall concept of trying to make up for the injustices of apartheid, but the Italian investors bought the granite operations in 1994, after the collapse of apartheid. Why are foreign investors, who never invested here before 1994, who never benefited from the apartheid system, why are they subject to this form of redress? I don\'t think that\'s fair. Full Mail & Guardian Online report