LIBERTY COAL ASSERTS ITS RIGHT TO ACCESS AND MINE ON ITS MINING RIGHTS AREA AGAINST UNCOOPERATIVE LANDOWNER WITH PUNITIVE COSTS ORDER
Liberty Coal is pleased to confirm that its legal rights to access and commence mining on one of the immovable properties over which it holds the rights to mine coal at the Optimum Colliery has been successfully upheld by the Mpumalanga High Court, pending compensation for any loss or damage due to the landowner being agreed or determined.
This follows on protracted and unsuccessful attempts by Liberty Coal over several months to reach an amicable arrangement with the affected landowner, which required it eventually to institute urgent legal proceedings in order to enforce its rights and continue meeting its local employment commitments and stakeholder obligations. The latest court judgment upholding Liberty Coal’s rights in this regard affirms its belief that its hard-fought efforts over the past six years to rescue and reinstate the Optimum Colliery are fully justified.
In its judgment the Court pointed out that the landowner’s dilatory conduct in preventing Liberty Coal from accessing the property until compensatory negotiations were finalised, nor its demand for immediate compensation for any resultant crop losses, could not be condoned. Liberty Coal, despite its best endeavours to engage meaningfully with the landowner on the issue of compensation, was faced with constantly shifting goalposts which left it with no alternative but to approach the Court for relief.
The Court found that the landowner had not engaged in good faith with Liberty Coal’s attempts to settle the question of compensation expeditiously, and made its disapproval of its unreasonable and obstructive conduct clear by awarding Liberty Coal its legal costs, including the costs of two counsel, on the highest scale, akin to a punitive costs order.
As a responsible corporate citizen Liberty Coal values maintaining cordial, fair and mutually constructive relations with both its regulatory authorities and all persons affected by or engaged in its ongoing efforts to restore the Optimum Colliery complex to its former position as one of the country’s premier coal mines. It remains confident that the extensive refurbishment of the mine’s infrastructure it is undertaking, as also the planned redevelopment for agricultural-related uses of selected rehabilitated surface areas within the mine’s wide footprint, will keep on opening new job and enterprise opportunities for the surrounding communities, local businesses and landowners.
