Anglo American underperformers for sale

Anglo American promised further sales of underperforming businesses as Mark Cutifani said the miner’s turnaround was on course, despite lower commodity prices and a long strike in South Africa’s platinum sector, according to the Australian Financial Review.

After reviewing Anglo’s performance over more than a year since he became chief executive, Cutifani said he had earmarked other businesses for sale, after striking a deal to sell Anglo’s half-share in Lafarge Tarmac and announcing a plan last week to withdraw from some high-cost platinum mines.

Caymans court lambastes former BHP chief Brian Gilbertson

Former BHP Billiton chief executive Brian Gilbertson has been blasted by a Cayman Islands judge for pursuing a years-long legal “vendetta” and “feud” against Russia’s third-richest man, Viktor Vekselberg, over shares in a mining company and the fabled Faberge jewellery brand name, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Justice Angus Foster of the Cayman Islands Grand Court last week ruled that it would be an abuse of process to allow Gilbertson’s Jersey-based family trust to continue with a lawsuit against Vekselberg, fellow Russian oligarch Vladimir Kutnetsov and the pair’s Renova group.

Palmer credentials under scrutiny after native title sidestep

Billionaire politician Clive Palmer secured Pilbara mining leases without negotiating with native title holders in an opportunistic business deal that casts doubt over his credentials to be involved in indigenous policy making, according to the Australian Financial Review.

The revelation could also open the Sino Iron ore project in Western Australia – where the leases are located and Palmer remains locked in a bitter battle with his Chinese business partner Citic Pacific – to legal challenges from disenfranchised native title holders empowered by a court decision that raised concerns over similar leases.

Representatives of Citic and Palmer’s company, Mineralogy, declined to comment.