‘Aussie mining company 'SLAPP suit' against SA activists partly settled out of court’ 23 November 2023

Just over half of the claims in a long-running R14.25 million "SLAPP" defamation action brought by Australian mining interests against six South African environmentalists and social activists have been settled out of court. The terms of the settlement agreement are confidential. SLAPP is an acronym for Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation and describes a legal strategy typically employed by wealthy individuals or large corporations to sue critics for huge defamation damages in order to discourage, censor, intimidate and silence them or to tie them up in lengthy and very expensive court action. This particular action, involving a number of defamation claims in three cases, was brought by Australian mining company Mineral Commodities Ltd (known as MRC), its South African subsidiary, Mineral Sands Resources (MSR), then MRC executive chair Mark Caruso, and MRC black empowerment partner Zamile Qunya.

…The case made local legal history earlier this year by being the first SLAPP suit to reach the Constitutional Court. The court made several rulings relating to legal principles involved in instituting and defending SLAPP and other defamation suits, but it did not consider the merits of the alleged defamations in this particular action. This week, MRC settled its claim of R1 million against Dlamini and R500 000 from Cullinan in the first case. In the second case, MSR settled claims of R250 000 each against Reddell, Davies and Cloete, while Qunya settled his R500 000 claim against Cloete. All these settlements were by agreement. In the third case, MRC settled 13 claims against Clarke totalling R4.5 million. However, MRC’s controversial executive chairperson at the time of the alleged defamations, Mark Caruso, has not settled his linked cases.

…Cullinan said in reaction that the partial settlement was "not exactly what I wanted, but nevertheless I’m happy". He described the Constitutional Court judgment that confirmed SLAPP suits are an abuse of legal process as "very significant". "In my opinion, this helped to facilitate the settlement," he said. "And I hope that the fact that the MRC companies have now settled this litigation in the wake of the Constitutional Court judgments will make other companies and wealthy individuals think twice about launching SLAPP suits against people who speak up in the public interest by criticising corporate actions that they believe are socially or environmentally harmful. "I accept that sometimes companies and their executives may believe that they are being unfairly criticised and that sometimes the critics may not have all the correct facts. However, our society is strengthened by robust public debates on issues of public interest and not by allowing wealthy corporations and individuals to bully critics into silence by abusing legal processes."