Worlds Apart:
Class Action Lawsuits, Hailed as a Win, Brought Little Change
By Estacio Valoi and Evelyn Groenink
What does legal victory look like when the perpetrators are never punished, the land remains off-limits to locals, and the lawyers have long since moved on to their next case? In Montepuez, in northern Mozambique, we now know the answer. In 2019, after years of documented killings, beatings, and forced removals tied to the ruby mining operations of the multinational Gemfields, 273 local villagers received financial settlements, thanks to a British law firm. It was hailed as a triumph. But the rubies are still being mined, the violence has not stopped, and the people of Montepuez are still waiting for something the settlement was never designed to deliver: justice.
273
Villagers who received damages
2019
Year of settlement
£5K–20K
Individual pay-out range
Very little has changed in Montepuez since the lawsuit. Gemfields Group LTD, with its London head office and its local ruling party co-owners, still guards its concession avidly. Poverty reigns behind the “forbidden to enter” gates.
Villagers trying to dig for gemstones on the land of their birth still risk being shot by special forces. Other means of earning a living remain scarce after, a decade ago, locals were uprooted from farms and shops to make space for the mining concession.
In 2019, 273 inhabitants of Montepuez received substantial damages pay-outs from a class action lawsuit brought on their behalf by the London law firm Leigh Day against Gemfields, which mines rubies in the Montepuez region.
Leigh Day and others heralded the court victory as a major triumph of right over wrong, though Gemfields did not admit culpability. The money, not enough, several villagers claim, came and went, and exploitation and violence continued.
A similar lawsuit also failed to bring “lasting, systemic change” in Malawi. There, in 2021, a class action against UK-based tea companies over the sexual abuse of tea pickers by supervisors also won in the UK.
Despite legal settlements and promises of reform, women there continue to face harassment, coercion, and violence. The systemic abuse, long hidden behind the veil of Malawi’s booming tea industry, remains a painful reality for hundreds of women, our colleagues at the Platform for Investigative Journalism report.
Beneficiaries in both countries report either neglect or further victimization by local authorities, as well as by criminals and con men who came to "help" the often illiterate recipients with their bank papers.
In Malawi, women who had received money were rumoured to be witches and Satanists, a situation exacerbated by non-disclosure agreements forbidding them from speaking about the rapes. Neither the police nor the labour department ever took an interest in their complaints, either before or after the law firm’s intervention.
The minister who had been in charge of the Labor Department when the abuses cited in the Leigh Day lawsuit were committed, Vera Kamtukule, shouted at the journalist who questioned her: “You betray Malawians! This kind of news endangers our industry of 60,000 workers!”
In Mozambique, police, politicians and members of the secret service accused beneficiaries of being “terrorists,” claiming that their pay-outs had come from insurgents known as “Mozambican Al Shabab.” A 2024 uprising against the corrupt government saw recently acquired housing, small farms and vehicles go up in flames.
In Mozambique, beneficiaries were accused of being terrorists.
In both countries, there were unwise purchases too, made by people who had never handled more money than was needed to buy bread or a few vegetables. But that is the argument used by the corporates, says Daniel Leader, a partner at Leigh Day, that we “must not give poor people money because that will upset the community.” Leader specializes in environmental and corporate responsibility cases.
Why was no training provided?
“We thought they should have that training, and we had a local NGO in place to facilitate it, but the beneficiaries all refused when they were told it would cost them a small portion of their damages payments,” says Leigh Day’s Daniel Leader.
Leader admits that it was perhaps to be expected that people would feel unwilling to accept such a deduction. “But we could not help that. There was no pot of money made available by Gemfields for this, so it had to come from the payments.”
“We now make sure that money for this purpose forms part of any new settlement we negotiate.”
The same managers, supervisors and police officers still hold power.
The Law Firm's Logic
"As long as justice systems in such countries remain corrupt, we see no other way to secure restoration than to hold the corporates to account in their own jurisdiction."
Class action lawsuits are Leigh Day’s bread and butter. The firm presents itself proudly as human rights lawyers, seeking out communities, often in Africa, whose environment and livelihoods have been damaged by UK-based multinationals. Their cases resound with descriptions of suffering, supported by testimony from doctors, trauma experts and psychiatrists. Some of their signage reads: “Lawyers Against Injustice.”
But a group of locals in Montepuez, six years on, say they are back at square one. The group of around 20 former beneficiaries has complained, saying they did not receive all that had been promised, that deductions were made of which they had not been informed, and that they are still awaiting final tranches of payment.
"You were paid, and there is no more."
— Daniel Leader, Leigh Day
Much of the anger centers on what they see as a 21.2 per cent deduction for Leigh Day’s fees, whereas they say they had been promised a deduction limited to 17.5 per cent. Leigh Day strenuously denies this, explaining they were legally entitled to as much as 25 per cent. Calculating the GBP deduction from the gross amount before it left London, ZAM magazine finds the firm is correct: it is 17.5 per cent. The group’s complaint may be related to currency conversion losses by the time the payment was made in meticals, the currency in Mozambique.
Compensation & Costs
Ten selected victims from Namanhumbir. The effective cost percentage of 21.2% — as experienced by claimants — versus the contracted 17.5% reflects the impact of currency conversion and bank charges applied before and after payment reached Mozambique.
"Still, to us here, it is 21.2 per cent. They should still come here and explain."
— Estacio Valoi
| # | GBP Compensation | Compensation (MZN) | Costs (GBP) | Eff. % Costs | % Potential Costs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4,578.09 | 357,071.00 | 971.11 | 21.2% | 17.5% |
| 2 | 2,928.09 | 228,391.00 | 621.11 | 21.2% | — |
| 3 | 7,320.23 | 570,978.00 | 1,552.78 | 21.2% | — |
| 4 | 21,858.54 | 1,704,966.00 | 4,636.66 | 21.2% | — |
| 5 | 1,650.00 | 128,700.00 | 350.00 | 21.2% | — |
| 6 | 24,786.00 | 1,933,352.00 | 5,257.77 | 21.2% | — |
| 7 | 2,382.02 | 185,798.00 | 505.28 | 21.2% | — |
| 8 | 2,235.62 | 174,378.00 | 474.22 | 21.2% | — |
| 9 | 2,118.49 | 165,243.00 | 449.38 | 21.2% | — |
| 10 | 5,856.18 | 456,782.00 | 1,242.22 | 21.2% | — |
Source: Values extracted from the individual contracts of the victims. Table composed by Rural Environment Observatory / Jerry Maquenzi, Montepuez.
Worlds That Touched Once
The locals call the lawyers their 'bosses'.
They have never seen the lawyers’ glass-walled offices in London, from which they came. “Our bosses,” they call them, for what else do you call people who hand you contracts stating the amounts they promise to pay? They have kept those contracts safe, through rainstorms and the smoke of charcoal cooking. One contract was even rescued from a fire, the burn holes still visible.
Estacio Valoi has consistently documented the locals’ lives under siege by the mining operation. Many locals see him as the one accessible point of contact that remains. “They phone me night and day,” Valoi says.
Now, while the lawyers have long since returned to their offices and their next cases — “we can’t respond within a week because the person who dealt with this is now in Nigeria” — it is once again Valoi who channels the group of Montepuez villagers’ continuing despair.
“They were hoping for justice and human rights, but what they got was some business, and then it stopped,” he says. “It’s good that the people received some money, but there has to be another way. Why are the murderers still in power in Montepuez?”
The secret service demanded all the papers.
Is There
Another Way?
Leigh Day typically demands the establishment of Operational Grievance Mechanisms within the companies with which it reaches settlements — virtual post boxes through which victims can continue to report abuses, monitored by independent experts. But do villagers in Montepuez still use them?
“There was a box where people could post complaints, but they stopped, I think,” is what Valoi knows. “The reality is that people just phone me and the journalists’ crew that works with me. Just us. They have been phoning us for years.”
Asked whether Leigh Day might consider a legal fund from which local lawyers could pursue follow-up actions, Daniel Leader questions whether these “will be successful in justice systems like in Mozambique.” “If you work with local lawyers, in a local-foreign partnership, taking both sides on and going to court in both places, you can be successful,” insists Valoi.
We leave the interview thinking that perhaps a new model for class action lawsuits could be developed. At least, that is what our white half, Evelyn Groenink, thinks. But the Mozambican half doubts.
"The feeling here is just disappointment."
The Firm's Reply
Though the Montepuez complainants’ group came forward saying they wanted to be heard, interviewed and photographed, ZAM was advised by Leigh Day that there is a court anonymity order in place protecting the identities of all beneficiaries of the lawsuit. Following the court order, ZAM has made individuals in photographs unrecognizable.
Leigh Day
- We refer to your emails of 2 and 5 February 2026 regarding the compensation payments made to claimants in the Gemfields Mozambique claim.
Deduction of costs from compensation
- As you have correctly stated, it was stipulated in the claimants’ compensation offer letters that Leigh Day would deduct 17.5% from their compensation, a level which is considerably below the 25% cap set by the Funding Agreement. The amount in Mozambican Meticais each claimant will receive is an approximate amount and will vary according to bank fees and conversion rates.
- It is not a surprise that a number of claimants have experienced identical percentage deductions, given that most payments were processed on the same day. The first payment was sent on 8 April 2019; the second was largely paid on 18 July 2019. Bank charges for international transfers were deducted before payment reached claimants’ accounts.
- The claimants entitled to the Nthoro fund payment were paid on 9 October 2020. As the payments were processed on the same day, it is highly likely they will have been subject to the same conversion rate.
- We have also been provided with a bank statement by one claimant indicating that bank charges and taxes were applied by the Mozambican bank, including stamp duty associated with the transfer, and further charges when money was withdrawn.
Registered office: Panagram, 27 Goswell Road, London EC1M 7AJ. Leigh Day is a partnership authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. SRA number 67679.
The above essay was originally published in ZAM magazine.
Estacio Valoi
Evelyn Groenink
After co-founding the Forum for African Investigative Reporters (FAIR) together with colleagues from several African countries in 2003, Evelyn Groenink went on to become investigations editor at ZAM, www.zammagazine.com, in the Netherlands. In that capacity she now works with FAIR’s successor, the Network of African Investigative Reporters and Editors. The network continues to publish investigative stories and transnational investigative projects from the African continent.
Evelyn Groenink
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