1. LITIGATION COSTS PRESENTATION: PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
OCTOBER 2017
Legal Authorisations and Compliance Inspectorate

2. LITIGATION REPORT
The nature of the Department’s work is that when parties are dissatisfied with an outcome of a particular process (authorization/ permit application/ legislative provision, and so forth) it gives rise to litigation. (Developers, NGO’s, interested parties are usual litigants).
The attached 60 page report that was submitted to the Committee contains a brief description of the litigation matters and the costs attached thereto (parties, brief description of the issues, etc). The Department has additionally submitted a break-down of costs per Branch.
The number of cases that were dealt with during the period 1 April 2016 to 30 September 2017 is 167 (inclusive of historical matters).

3. LITIGATION REPORT
The first part of the report deals with 106 applications (notices of motion) of which ONLY 3 (THREE) matters were initiated by the Department. The other 103 were applications instituted against the Department (Department = Respondent)
The second part of the report deals with monetary claims (contractual disputes; employees involved in accidents; salary over-payments and so forth)
The Litigation Report further reflects payments that were processed for the period 1 April 2016 to 30 September 2017.

4. LITIGATION REPORT
Total Litigation costs paid until 30 September 2017 (18 months) amount to R11,269, (This amount includes monetary claims)
Payments are made in accordance with the invoices that were received from the State Attorneys’ offices. A nil balance on the attached report is due to the fact that we have not yet received an invoice. These costs are accordingly still to be paid.

5. LITIGATION REPORT
It should be noted that the litigation costs related to a matter are not necessarily paid in the same financial year that the matter arose. Costs are often paid at a much later stage. The State Attorney pays the legal costs to Counsel and then claims the amounts back from Departments via the National Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.
Costs awarded to the Department are paid into the National Revenue Fund.

6. LITIGATION REPORT
Previously litigation costs were not separated according to the relevant cases and a globular amount for litigation was reflected in the financial statements.
From the 2016/2017 financial year, the Directorate Litigation within the Department implemented a system of allocating payments according to the relevant litigation matter.

7. Litigation Costs for the previous financial years
Historical Legal Costs
2013/2014 financial year: R
2014/2015 financial year:R
2015/2016 financial year: R
2016/2017 financial year: R

8. BROAD CATEGORISATION OF LITIGATION MATTERS:
CATEGORY
NUMBER OF MATTERS
AMOUNTS
Biodiversity and Conservation 13 R
Chemical and Waste Management 17 R
Chief Operating Officer 11 R
Climate Change and Air Quality 3 R
Environmental Programmes 5 R
Legal Authorisations and Compliance Inspectorate 52 R
Oceans and Coasts R0
Monetary claims against the Department(contractual disputes; employees involved in accidents; salary over payments) 61 R

9. Earthlife Africa Jhb vs Min of DEA and 6 Others(Thabametsi)costs:
The current litigation costs that the Department has paid for this matter to date is R
The Department of Justice has advised us that they have paid an amount of R to date as fees for Counsel employed by the Department.
We have not received the bill of costs from the Applicant as yet. We estimate their costs to be in the region of R