About

Deputy head of legal for South Africa Fiona Edmundson describes the Anglo American Group Legal South Africa team as ‘an ambitious and diverse department that continuously strives to collaborate and innovate with all stakeholders to deliver value and achieve the commercial and strategic objectives of the business’. Indeed, its successes over the past two years have been many and varied. ‘Members of the group legal South Africa team led, and were instrumental in, the recent landmark settlement of the silicosis and tuberculosis class action litigation in the gold mining industry’, Edmundson explains. ‘The settlement will result in the creation of a settlement trust tasked with managing the medical assessments of qualifying claimants, and the disbursement of compensation to such persons in a responsible manner. The team also led the legal work streams on a number of key strategic disposals for the Group. In March 2018 Anglo American successfully concluded the sale of its Eskom-tied domestic thermal coal mines to Seriti Resources Proprietary, while in August 2018 Anglo American successfully concluded the sale, by its 73%-held subsidiary Anglo American Inyosi Coal (Proprietary), of the New Largo thermal coal project and Old New Largo closed colliery in South Africa to New Largo Coal Proprietary’. As part of a major efficiency-improving measure, the team has undertaken a comprehensive restructuring in the way legal services are delivered to support the company-wide strategy implemented in 2016: ‘Alternative billing practices, fee arrangements and use of legal process outsourcers (LPOs) to improve efficiency, predictability and cost-effectiveness are the norm within Anglo American group legal’. The arrival of new group general counsel Richard Price is also hailed as a major development for the team: ‘One of Richard’s main objectives for the team from early on was to transition to a strategic, value-adding partner to the business rather than simply a provider of legal services. In order to achieve this goal, group legal South Africa continues to spend considerable time and effort developing processes and identifying external resources to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of its operating model. This free ups more capacity for team members to focus on value-adding, material and strategic matters’.