PETER ESHUN & ORS vs. ANGLOGOLD ASHANTI (GHANA) LTD

This is a High Court action by several hundred former employees who were retrenched between September 2013 and November 2014. They seek declarations and payment of outstanding redundancy benefits or, in the alternative, invalidation of the redundancy. The defendant company pleads payment, estoppel, limitation and abuse of process, pointing out that the plaintiffs previously pursued and lost the same claim before the National Labour Commission. After a two-day trial in April 2025, the Court first considered the preliminary objections. It held that the cause of action accrued no later than November 2014 and the present writ, issued in April 2023 and amended in June 2024, was therefore brought outside the six-year period prescribed by section 4(1) of the Limitation Act. The plaintiffs’ reliance on their earlier NLC proceedings and unproven allegations of fraud did not suspend time. In addition, bringing a fresh High Court action after an adverse decision of the NLC amounted to an abuse of the court’s process because any challenge should have been by appeal to the Court of Appeal. Accordingly, the Court dismissed the suit in its entirety and made no order for costs.