US firm faces $1bn claim for complicity
April 7, 2003
Sasolburg - Fluor, the biggest US publicly traded engineering and construction company, faces a $1 billion claim by black former workers who allege they were discriminated against under apartheid.
Anglo American, the world's second-biggest mining company, and diamond producer De Beers also face a lawsuit by former employees who say they were enslaved, beaten and tortured under apartheid.
Lawyer Ed Fagan said a lawsuit would be filed today in California federal courts. The suit will argue that Fluor paid blacks less than whites and that the company helped repress workers during a 1987 strike in which two were killed.
Fagan said at a press conference in Sasolburg: "Fluor management was clearly involved in acts of aggression against its workers."
New York-based Fagan was involved in suits that won a $1.25 billion judgment against Swiss banks for victims of the Holocaust and a $5 billion award to compensate slave workers in Germany during World War 2.
Fluor helped Sasol, Africa's biggest publicly traded company by sales, build coal-to-petrol refineries.
Fagan alleged that by doing so Fluor supported apartheid by enabling the country to evade UN oil sanctions.
At the weekend Fagan also served papers on Anglo American and its diamond mining associate De Beers, suing them for $6.1 billion.
Black workers were "starved, forced to go without water, beaten or tortured", according to the lawsuit.
It says Anglo American and De Beers benefited from South Africa's migrant labour system, in which black men were forced to work in gold and diamond mines.
Men lived in single-sex hostels packed 12 or more to a room.
Their families were not allowed to join them and remained in rural villages.
Alan Miller, the chief executive of Stanlib Asset Management in Johannesburg, said: "It would be very unfair to single out Anglo as the one company, or one of the companies, to pay reparations.
"It's bad publicity for Anglo, but I don't think this is a serious threat," he added.
Lawyers representing black South Africans have already filed at least three suits in New York courts against Citigroup, General Motors, UBS and 19 other companies, alleging they helped the apartheid government that killed and tortured opponents to maintain white rule.
Brandishing a knife in front the crowd on Saturday, Fagan said: "With American justice and your strength we will return this to Fluor right through their hearts." - Jonathan Rosenthal and Antony Sguazzin
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