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Flam
boyant US lawyer Ed Fagan is expected to file a new
$100-billion lawsuit today in a New York court against at least
five companies accused of defrauding South African workers during
apartheid.
John Ngcebetsha, the South African lawyer representing the
claimants, said yesterday a class action suit was expected to be
filed in the New York State Court against the companies, which
included giant South African finance group Alexander Forbes.
"The claims will be filed on behalf of ex-workers who deposited
money into pension, health, life, unemployment and retirement
funds, and never received a cent back from these companies,"
Ngcebetsha said.
"Some of these workers have been waiting for more than ten years,
many of them without jobs," he said.
According to papers to be lodged before the court, other companies
listed in the lawsuit include the Union Carbide corporation and the
Dow Chemical company.
The companies are accused of defrauding workers of billions of
dollars.
The suit was filed against "the plaintiff facilities in and around
the Republic of South Africa who deposited billions of dollars in
pension, health, life unemployment and retirement funds, which were
later negligently, carelessly or recklessly unaccounted for,
improperly transferred, withheld, lost or stolen".
In May, a group called the Apartheid Claims Task Force announced
plans to file a lawsuit worth billions of dollars in New York
against South African gold mining company Gold Fields for making
blacks work under "sub-human" conditions during the apartheid
regime.
Fagan has also filed or announced plans to file other suits against
Swiss and US banks, pharmaceutical conglomerates, car
manufacturers, food giant Nestle and mining companies De Beers and
Anglo American, among others, on the grounds that they allegedly
benefitted under the apartheid regime.
Ngcebetsha said today's lawsuit represented a new claim, and was
unrelated to the claims already filed by Fagan, who spearheaded a
successful claim against Swiss banks on behalf of Holocaust
victims.
"This is a new class action. We don't have the names of all the
victims yet, but we hope that more would come along as time goes
on," he said.
President Thabo Mbeki has said in the past the South African
government did not support the apartheid claims, as many of the
companies where now helping with South Africa's development.
– Sapa-AFP.
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