ONTARIO, Canada
Superior Court in Ontario on Tuesday dismissed a case against Barrick Gold brought by Tanzanian residents on security incidents in the country, as the courts lacked jurisdiction to consider the claims, the miner said in a statement.
A group of 21 Tanzanian
nationals had filed a lawsuit in Canada in November 2022, alleging that Barrick
was complicit in extrajudicial killings by police guarding its North Mara mine.
The events date back to 2006 when Barrick first owned the mine.
Barrick owns a majority stake
in North Mara Gold Mine Limited, located in northwest Tanzania, since 2019.
The lawsuit claimed that the
miner “had effective and practical control” over Tanzanian police stationed at
the mine.
Barrick said on Tuesday the
case should not have been brought in Canada.
In June, the miner wrote to
the United Nations Human Rights Council saying the allegations were
“misdirected, unfounded” and “lacked substance”.
“The plaintiffs in this case
are engaging in a classic case of forum-shopping: deliberately seeking to
implicate Barrick in a case in Ontario, where the only viable defendants would
be North Mara Gold Mine Limited (NMGML) and the Tanzanian Police Force (TPF),”
a spokesman for
Barrick said in October when the matter came before the court.
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