Gencor Suit Pegs Asbestos Liabilities at $144 Million ----------------------------------------------------- Published October 25, 2002 Lawyers for about 1600 former asbestos miners who worked for Gencor Ltd have made their first attempt to calculate the mining house's liability to claimants suffering from asbestos-related diseases. Lawyers also expect to find 2,200 deaths of former miners caused by mesothelioma and more than 700 deaths of lung cancer caused by Gencor's former mining operations. Richard Spoor, an occupational health lawyer with law firm Ntuli, Noble & Spoor said the company's potential asbestos liabilities of 1.5 billion rand (about $144 million) figure did not include Gencor's potential environmental liability or people who were "exposed to asbestos pollution on the mines". Mr. Spoor said it was the claimants' first considered attempt to "fix some figure". The claimants had recently filed their supplementary papers in the high court to interdict Gencor from holding a shareholders meeting in early October. The meeting would have decided on a proposal for the distribution of Gencor's 46,1% stake in Impala Platinum to Gencor shareholders. The interdict was also intended to halt Gencor's proposed unbundling. "It was a rough and conservative assessment," said Spoor. He said it was based on a detailed assessment by Professor Rodney Ehrlich, head of community health at the University of Cape Town. The study assumed that about 44000 workers were employed by the Griqualand Exploration and Finance Corporation in the Northern Cape and 7300 workers by African Crysotile Asbestos, and Msauli Asbestos. Mr. Spoor said if Gencor proceeded with the unbundlings the claimants would look to the shareholders who had received distributions to meet the claims. The Companies Act made provision for this, he said. On Tuesday the high court in Britain granted an order to make Gencor a co-defendant in proceedings against UK-based company Cape plc. This followed Cape PLC's failure to honor a settlement agreement with 7500 SA victims suffering from asbestos-related diseases. Cape had agreed to pay GBP21m into a trust fund to be established in SA. Mr. Spoor said Gencor had a choice to contest the UK action or not. If Gencor chose not to fight, the claimants would look to BHP Billiton resident in the UK for compensation, he said. BHP Billiton was the major shareholder of Gencor. In 1997 when the company listed on the London Stock Exchange, Gencor transferred its base metal assets including aluminum, titanium minerals and coal to Billiton plc. At present Gencor was contending with 37 summonses from claimants who allege they contracted asbestos-related diseases while working at mines linked to Gencor.