
Trial of the London Bullion Market Association to go ahead at the High Court next year following alleged human rights abuses at African gold mine
The High Court has ruled that a legal claim against the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) alleging it is wrongly certifying gold from a mine in Tanzania as free from serious human rights abuses will go to trial in the summer of 2026.
Posted on 27 January 2025
At a hearing on Monday 20 January 2025, Mrs Justice May scheduled a four-week trial to begin at the High Court on the first available date after 29 June 2026.
The claim against the LBMA is being brought by law firm Leigh Day on behalf of the families of two artisanal miners who were killed by security forces in 2019 while prospecting for gold at the North Mara Gold Mine in Tanzania. Both were 23 years old at the time of their deaths.
The families of two men allege that the LBMA wrongly certified gold sourced from the mine as being free from serious human rights abuses at the time of their deaths and continues to do so today. This is despite the mine being associated with a widely reported pattern of systematic human rights abuses over many years. The claimants allege that the mine would have been forced to put a stop to the human rights abuses and their relatives would still be alive had LBMA enforced its own responsible sourcing programme properly.
The LBMA oversees the London gold bullion market, the largest in the world, with approximately US$230 billions of gold being traded in London each week. All gold bars traded in London must be produced by a refiner who is accredited by the LBMA as being compliant with their Responsible Sourcing Programme, which was established to ensure that gold bullion traded in London is untainted by serious human rights abuses.
The North Mara mine is majority-owned by Canadian multinational Barrick Gold Corporation, one of the world’s largest gold mining companies. Gold from the mine is refined by MMTC-PAMP, a Swiss-Indian refiner which began refining gold from North Mara in 2013 and was first accredited by the LBMA in 2014.
The LBMA denies liability, saying the claims being brought in respect of the fatalities are fundamentally misaligned with its duties and responsibilities. Barrick Gold also denies the allegations regarding North Mara mine.
Last year the LBMA contested the jurisdiction of the English Courts to hear the claims, arguing that Tanzania would be a more appropriate jurisdiction for the case to be heard. The families of the miners opposed this application on the basis that the LBMA is a British organisation, and that victims of human rights abuses in Tanzania have extreme difficulty accessing justice through the Tanzanian courts.
Five weeks before a scheduled hearing, the LBMA confirmed it was abandoning its jurisdiction challenge, and it was agreed the claims would proceed before the High Court in London. The entire jurisdiction challenge process delayed the progress of the case against the LMA for almost a year.
Leigh Day international team partner Daniel Leader, said:
“After a significant delay to the case caused by the LBMA’s withdrawn jurisdiction challenge, the legal claim is now back on track, with a trial scheduled in 2026. Our clients look forward to seeking justice for the deaths of their relatives. They want to know to how gold from the mine where their loved ones were killed, and where systemic human rights abuses have been reported for more than a decade, is repeatedly being certified as meeting the LBMA’s responsible sourcing standards.”

Daniel Leader
International human rights, business human rights and corporate accountability lawyer

Barrick Gold
Leigh Day initiated proceedings in the High Court in London in March 2013 on behalf of Tanzanian villagers who lived near the North Mara mine in Tanzania

Legal action served against LBMA following alleged human rights abuses at Tanzanian gold mine
A legal case has been served on the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) alleging that it is wrongly certifying gold from a mine in Africa as being free from serious human rights abuses. The LBMA oversees the vast London gold market, the largest in the world.