The legality of an empowerment deal in which Lonmin will give the Bapo ba Mogale community platinum shares worth R564-million and a cash payment of R20-million is being challenged.
Members of the Matuma clan, who claim to be the rightful descendants of the royal Bapo ba Mogale, are challenging the deal, signed last month.
According to the group, the Matuma clan is the most senior house of the royal family, not the Mokgethong clan, which they say is the junior house, and therefore has no right to sign off on any deals on behalf of the community.
They claim the present king, Bob Edward Mogale, is not the rightful monarch, and the position should be held by Moses Matlakala Mogale.
Moses has filed a challenge to the throne through the Mafereka commission, set up to investigate the Bapo ba Mogale chieftainship.
If this is successful the group will challenge the legality of the Lonmin deal on the grounds that the king did not have the right to enter into it, and that residents were coerced into signing consent forms.
But Lonmin spokesman Sue Vey said that, irrespective of the challenge to the chieftaincy, the deal would stand because "all the necessary authorisations to enter into the deal were obtained by the Bapo community".
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