[miningmx.com] — BUSINESS daily Sake24’s drawn-out court battle with BHP Billiton took a surprising turn on Friday when Judge Frans Kgomo of the South Gauteng High Court rejected, with costs, the mining giant’s application for leave to appeal against a judgment that the public have the right to know what Billiton’s aluminium operations in South Africa were paying for electricity supply.
Kgomo instructed BHP Billiton and Eskom to hand over to him the information that Sake 24 had requested in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia). It had been kept back, because Billiton planned to appeal against the ruling. Eskom did not appeal.
Kgomo said on Friday he was waiting with “bated breath’ for Billiton’s legal team, headed by Advocate Frank Snyckers SC, to convince him why he must grant leave to appeal.
Snyckers argued that the public’s great interest in the Paia request meant that the application for leave to appeal had to be granted. However, Kgomo agreed with Sake 24’s legal representative, Advocate Stephen Budlender, that a different court would not come to a different conclusion.
This is not necessarily the end of the appeal procedure, and the public would have to wait longer to find out how the price for electricity at the two smelters is calculated, as well as how long the contracts are valid for and who originally signed the agreements in the 1990’s.
Billiton could direct another application for leave to appeal to the Judge President of the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein within 21 days. Sake 24 would be permitted to reply, and the application would then be considered by two appeal judges.
