'Massive SLAPP Suit Against Environmentalists Withdrawn’ 24 January 2025

A massive damages claim of R197 million by a property development company against environmentalists – widely acknowledged as a SLAPP lawsuit and understood to be the largest of its kind in South African legal history – has been withdrawn in the Gauteng High Court. SLAPP is an acronym for “strategic litigation against public participation” and is described as “meritless or exaggerated lawsuits intended to intimidate civil society advocates, human rights defenders, journalists, academics and individuals, as well as organisations acting in the public interest”. In a typical SLAPP suit, the plaintiff doesn’t necessarily expect to win its case. This lawsuit was instituted in 2021 by Century Property Developments and one of its subsidiaries, Riversands Developments, against non-profit environmental group Greater Kyalami Conservancy (GEKCO) and its chairperson, Kristin Kallesen, in her personal capacity.

…Their papers argued that the developers did not “honestly believe that they have any prospect of recovering the amount of damages claimed from the defendants”, and that their action “violates the right to freedom of expression and environmental rights entrenched in the Constitution”. What followed were three legal factors that effectively put paid to Century Property Developments’ damages claim. Firstly, the plaintiffs did not actively pursue the case after the responding papers had been filed in May 2021. Then, in what has been described as a “landmark judgment”, the constitutional court late last year confirmed the validity of a SLAPP defence in South African law. The judgment emerged from a defamation case brought by Australian mining interests against three South African environmental lawyers, two community activists and a social worker, who had also argued that it constituted an unlawful SLAPP suit.

…Then, on 14 January, the developers withdrew their huge summons, by agreement and with the parties all paying their own costs. In response, Kallesen said groups like the CER and CALS (Wits University’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies) were doing “great work” to ensure that whistleblowers and activists were protected from corporate bullying, and that being linked up with Power and Associates had made the process “so much easier for us”. GEKCO members believed their right to freedom of expression, among other rights, had been vindicated by the settlement, she said. “These cases are intended to intimidate and, if successful, may silence activists, journalists, and whistleblowers, for example, if not opposed. “I feel that we are one of the success stories that need to be told.”