Category Archives: Uncategorized

A new report by RAID ‘Bribery in its purest form’: Och-Ziff, asset laundering and the London connection (released 5 January 2017) sets out the repeated failure of the UK regulatory authorities over a 10-year period  to take action to prevent assets acquired through corrupt means being traded on the London markets.

Acacia’s Response to Globe and Mail Article raises more questions than it answers about human rights violations at the North Mara mine in Tanzania.[1] RAID and MiningWatch Canada note that Barrick has also responded to the newspaper article, recognising that violence at North Mara (‘there have been confrontations with police resulting in deaths’) is a matter of concern for Barrick as a majority shareholder in an affiliated mine.

For the first time the Tanzanian Government has acknowledged the scale of violence surrounding the North Mara Gold Mine, say MiningWatch Canada and the British NGO Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) in their most recent field assessment, Adding Insult to Injury at the North Mara Mine (released today).

RAID and MiningWatch Canada have engaged in extensive exchanges with Acacia Mining over the past two years about security and human rights concerns at the North Mara Gold Mine. Our organisations have been critical of the continuing high level of violence at the mine site and the lack of a transparent and effective remedy programme.

As noted in our recent blog Panama, Congo, Zimbabwe, London, New York: the vultures come home to roost, RAID had been seeking permission to appeal an earlier decision that HM Treasury was entitled to withhold information on its implementation of sanctions against Zimbabwe. The Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) has now granted RAID permission to appeal.

RAID recently lost the first round of a court case concerning freedom of information and sanctions against Zimbabwe. At first sight, and set against other momentous news and disclosures, this ruling on a point of law appears to have little consequence. However, the current furore over the ‘Panama Papers’ underlines its far-reaching significance.

In a blow to efforts to rebuild its reputation after an ignominious exit from the London Stock Exchange[1], the Eurasian Resources Group (ERG, formerly ENRC) has been publicly criticised by the UK Government for failing to address human rights impacts at mine sites under the control of its subsidiaries in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).[2] ENRC had tried – but ultimately failed – to get the adverse findings overturned.

Company grievance mechanisms are more about protecting or refurbishing a company’s reputation than providing an effective remedy to the victims of corporate-related human rights abuse. This is the conclusion of the latest report by Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID), Principles without justice: the corporate takeover of human rights. The report examines practices at Tanzanian and Congolese subsidiaries of two of the world’s biggest mining companies, Glencore and Barrick Gold. 

RAID’s public communications are based on extensive, well-documented, case material gathered in field visits to the North Mara mine with MiningWatch, before and after the recent settlement of claims brought by Leigh Day & Co. on behalf of victims of violence at the mine site.  The claims, though denied by Acacia, resulted in an out-of-court settlement in February 2015 here.