South Africa Wants Court Ruling on Mines’ Black-Holding Rule
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South Africa will ask a court to rule on whether mining companies can say they have met black-ownership rules even after shareholders have sold their stake in assets amid a dispute over how to interpret the laws, Mineral Resources Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi said.
The nation, which has the world’s biggest reserves of platinum, chrome ore and manganese, enacted a Mining Charter in 2004, compelling operators to sell 26 percent of their local assets to black South Africans by the end of 2014 as a way to compensate for discrimination during apartheid rule, which ended in 1994. Some investors that acquired the so-called empowerment stakes at discounts subsequently sold them, diluting the companies’ black shareholding.