South Africa’s Chamber of Mines has applied to a high court for an interdict to prevent the implementation of a new charter that increases the minimum threshold for black ownership of mining companies, the industry body said on Monday.

“The vast and systemic damage which the publication and threatened enforcement of the 2017 Charter has and continues to inflict … requires, it is submitted, urgent redress,” the chamber said in a statement.

A court application to have the new mining charter reviewed in terms of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act will follow in due course, the chamber said.

(Reporting by Joe Brock; Editing by Tiisetso Motsoeneng)