Anglo American’s AGM 2026: “I repeat what I said before” – evading accountability and broken promises
29/06/2026
On 29th April, after a protest outside the building, ACTSA attended Anglo American’s 2026 AGM along with London Mining Network to question the mining giant about its legacy in Kabwe, Zambia, and in the thousands of formers miners with TB and silicosis denied due compensation. Thank you to LMN’s Richard Solly and Jake Simms for putting together this report (full report here).
Anglo are finalising a merger with Teck Resources, the second biggest merger in the history of the mining industry, promising shareholders a lucrative future as a ‘Global Critical Minerals Champion’.
Yet communities from Chile, Peru, Brazil, South Africa and Zambia have united to resist the company’s devastating legacy of environmental and social destruction. At what could be Anglo’s last AGM before they become Anglo Teck, we were there to amplify community voices and hold the company to account.
After demonstrating outside the AGM, joining protests in Kabwe, Zambia, and Johannesburg, South Africa, also taking place against Anglo American, LMN went inside the meeting to demand answers from Anglo executives.
Anglo’s prepared responses to the questions submitted in advance were at times helpfully factual, sometimes vacuous, and once in a while introduced by a phrase which company Chairman Stuart Chambers seemed to like: “I repeat what I said before…” We were also repeating what we, and the communities with whom we work, have said many times before. What is required of the company is effective action to redress the injustices to which the Board’s attention has repeatedly been drawn. The following is an account of the question and answer session of the AGM, broken down into key themes raised.
Anglo American’s presentations
The company’s presentations and the opening speeches by the Chairman, Stuart Chambers, and Chief Executive Officer, Duncan Wanblad, are available on the company’s website. They spoke of their delight that the merger with Teck had been overwhelmingly approved by shareholders – a ‘pivotal moment in our long history’ that offers shareholders ‘more than 70% exposure to copper’, despite growing community resistance to Anglo’s copper expansions across Chile and Peru.
They boasted of the simplification of the company’s portfolio; the demerger of Anglo Platinum in May to form Valterra Platinum and the sale of nickel and diamond assets. No mention was made of the powerful demands for reparations and accountability from communities and civil society across southern Africa. The fact that Anglo continues to be the third largest global exporter of metallurgical coal, having failed to sell the assets to Peabody, was brushed over.
Improvements in safety performance were highlighted, alongside regret that, despite this, there had been two fatalities in managed operations in the past year.
Kabwe, Zambia
Chitra Karve, Chair of ACTSA (Action for Southern Africa), asked about the company’s legacy in the town of Kabwe in Zambia. She said: “Following the November 2005 hearing, the judgement of the South African Supreme Court appeal in relation to the mass lead poisoning in Kabwe, Zambia, is imminently expected, perhaps as soon as 1st May. What contingencies and provisions have Anglo American put in place to mitigate the ramifications of the court deciding that the case has legal merit and the case proceeding to the next stage? In particular, have shareholders been briefed on the potential liabilities and has there been disclosure to Teck Resources, as part of the merger process, for these potential liabilities and their impact on the valuation, insurance cover and future reputational risk to the organisation?”
Stuart Chambers said that the case was the subject of litigation, so Company Secretary Richard Price would respond, as Group legal counsel. Stuart Chambers said “whilst we have every sympathy… for the people of Kabwe, this is a very long-running and unpleasant business… but we are very clear, very clear that Anglo American is not responsible either legally or morally for what is the situation in Kabwe and simply maintains that this claim is entirely misconceived and misdirected”.
Richard Price added that “Anglo American South Africa stands by its belief that the claimants’ lawyers’ attempt to attribute legal responsibility to Anglo American South Africa for the current situation in Kabwe is both legally and factually flawed, particularly considering that the actual responsible party has acknowledged its responsibilities and is not a party to this lawsuit”.
He stated that “certification is a procedural step that every claimant in a class action lawsuit must obtain in order to commence the suit” and that “there actually exists a relatively low bar under South African law for a class action to be certified”. He stated that “the High Court dismissed the claim originally, concluding in the strongest possible terms that it would not be in the interests of justice for this claim to proceed”.
He acknowledged that the case is being appealed, and stated that “once the judgment is received, we’ll take all necessary steps. If the court does conclude to certify the class action, we’ll continue to defend ourselves or defend Anglo American South Africa because as the chair says, we do not believe we’re either legally or morally responsible”. He stated that “ Tech is of course, as you would expect, well aware, of this matter and we have been entirely transparent about it”.
Chitra replied that shareholders must be concerned about the reputational risk to the company and that ACTSA and other responsible mining organisations would not be letting the matter go.
Former miners suffering from silicosis and TB
Rachel Palma Randle, Director of ACTSA, asked about former miners. She said: “According to the Tshiamiso Trust, hundreds of thousands of former miners who were deemed unfit for work because of silicosis and TB disease will no longer be able to access the compensation arising from the silicosis and TB settlement of 2019. This is because the Tshiamiso Trust has unilaterally decided that the medical role of the occupational diseases certificates, used for decades to determine the fitness for work or retrenchment of miners are no longer valid evidence for compensation claims from the Trust. Justice for Miners, a South African charity supporting miners to make their compensation claims, have registered their objection to this in the South African courts, and I raise it because I think it is important that shareholders are aware and the Board are aware of the real life implications of decisions made by this organisation on communities and on real people’s lives.
“My question is, as one of the six settling mines and therefore already legally committed to pay compensation, how does Anglo American South Africa plan to intervene to prevent proposed amendments to the Trust’s deed and ensure that there are no barriers to their former employees claiming rightful compensation through the Trust, compensation which ranges from just £539 through to £4,300 – peanuts, given what we have discussed here today. We have settled 26,939 claims of a potential 500,000. What steps will Anglo American South Africa take in the remaining five years of the Trust to ensure that the compensation committed by the mining companies is finally paid out to those former miners and their families, some who have already sadly passed an agonising death, as the Trust deed intended, without further delay?”
Stuart Chambers replied that “everybody should be really concerned about these people affected and these claimants”. He claimed that “Anglo American was quite instrumental and a leader in creating this settlement, and I think our contribution originally was somewhere around 100 million dollars into this fund”. He stated that “the Qhubeka Trust is is an independent trust and it has designed its own processes and procedures and engaged its own specialists, in order to deliver on this mandate of the settlement agreement and the trust deed, as endorsed by the High Court”. He stated that “it is the trust that manages the claims, quite rightly of course, and the payment process, not the settling mine companies… the mine companies of course fund the trust and have funded the trust, as stipulated in the deed. But it is expressly of course not the case that we can get involved in deciding, you know, claimant by claimant what is done and not.”
Stuart added that “the Qhubeka Trust publishes this stuff… it’s around 26, 27,000 so far [that] has been paid out and dealt with. But I don’t recognize the 500,000. You know, that would imply 84, 85% hasn’t, right?” He added that “Your point is is well made. Can I just say therefore that whilst it is not appropriate or acceptable for us to kind of intervene in the detail, we can of course proactively engage with some of the civil society organizations on matters such as this and as the trust.”
He stated “all we can do is take the spirit of your um your concerns here and in our proactive engagement, we can ask the same questions as a as a funder to satisfy ourselves that there are good reasons for what you are describing… so very happy to do that, of course, but please I want shareholders to understand that that’s no doubt achievable and influence is possible, but we are not able to interfere in the detail.”
Rachel said that ACTSA would be meeting with Anglo American South Africa in Johannesburg the following week. Stuart Chambers said he was pleased to hear this.