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The Gauteng High Court has ruled that Patrice Motsepe's African Rainbow Capital cannot be held liable in a $195 million (R3.2 billion) lawsuit filed by US company Pula Group over an alleged breach of a confidentiality agreement tied to a Tanzanian graphite project.
Judge Leicester Adams, ruling on April 15, found that Pula Group and its Tanzanian subsidiary Pula Graphite Partners had made out no cause of action in breach of contract against ARC, and that the relief they were seeking against Motsepe's investment vehicle was not competent under South African law. The core of the ruling rested on a straightforward contractual point: the non-disclosure agreement at the centre of the dispute was signed in 2019 between African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) and Pula Group — not between Pula and ARC. The judge found that neither Pula Graphite nor ARC were parties to that agreement, and that if Pula could prove a breach and resulting damages, its contractual remedies lay against ARM, not ARC.
The ruling delivers a significant win for Motsepe, though it does not extinguish the litigation. The Tanzania proceedings, in which ARC had been the only Motsepe-linked entity to mount an active defence, continue independently. Motsepe personally, ARM and ARCH Sustainable Resources — a UK-based private equity fund in which Motsepe holds a significant interest — failed to appear at a scheduled Tanzania hearing in December 2023, a misstep that led the Tanzanian High Court in July 2024 to rule that those 3 parties had lost standing. Pula's application for a default judgment against them is pending.
How the dispute began
The roots of the case run back to 2019, when ARM signed a confidentiality agreement in Johannesburg with Pula Group covering a mining investment proposal in Tanzania. The project centred on graphite deposits in Tanzania's Chilalo region in Ruangwa district. No investment was made. The partnership discussions ended without a deal.
The trouble surfaced in October 2022, when Pula says it discovered that ARCH had invested in Evolution Energy Minerals, an Australian company developing a graphite project in Chilalo — directly adjacent to Pula's proposed Pula Graphite project. Pula alleged that confidential information shared under the 2019 NDA had been passed to ARCH and used to back a competitor, putting Pula at a commercial disadvantage and destroying the future value of its graphite exploration right.
In 2023 Pula Group filed a $195 million damages claim in Tanzania against Motsepe personally, ARC, ARM and ARCH. Motsepe rejected the allegations in characteristically blunt terms, calling them "absolute rubbish" and "baseless and nonsensical." ARC's position has been consistent throughout: the NDA was signed by ARM, not ARC; ARC had no obligations under it; and ARC therefore cannot be in breach of it. ARM's account was that it had considered Pula's proposal, declined it, and communicated that clearly.
The forum shopping accusation
The procedural history of the case became almost as contentious as the underlying dispute. After ARM, ARCH and Motsepe personally failed to appear at the December 2023 Tanzania hearing and subsequently lost standing, ARC turned to South African courts. In August 2025 ARC applied ex parte — without notifying Pula — to the Johannesburg High Court for declaratory orders, and was granted leave to serve Pula by edictal citation.
Pula Group, chaired by Charles R. Stith, the former US ambassador to Tanzania, and led by his daughter Dr Mary Stith as president, accused the Motsepe parties of "forum shopping" — seeking a more amenable jurisdiction only after losing procedural ground in Tanzania. "For more than two years, the dispute proceeded in Tanzania. Only after a series of adverse procedural developments did Motsepe-linked parties turn to South Africa," Pula said in a statement earlier this year. ARC maintained that South African courts had legitimate jurisdiction because the NDA was concluded in South Africa and governed by South African law.
Judge Adams' ruling on April 15 resolved that narrow question in ARC's favour, finding that the South African application was properly before the court and that ARC's argument on contractual liability was sound. Whether the broader $195 million claim against ARM survives — in Tanzania or elsewhere — remains an open question.
Who Motsepe is
Patrice Tlhopane Motsepe was born in 1962, the son of a Tswana chief who ran a spaza shop that served mine workers in Mmakau. He studied law at the University of the Witwatersrand, specialised in mining and business law, and in 1994 became the first black partner at the firm Bowman Gilfillan — the same year Nelson Mandela was elected. He founded Future Mining that year to provide contract services to established gold mines. In 1997 he bought 6 marginal gold mine shafts from AngloGold for $7.7 million, agreeing to repay the debt from future earnings. That gamble became the foundation of African Rainbow Minerals, which listed on the JSE in 2002.
ARM today holds interests in gold, platinum, iron ore, manganese, coal and base metals. Motsepe owns approximately 45% of the company and stepped down as its Executive Chairman in February 2026, transitioning to non-executive chairman. He also chairs Ubuntu-Botho Investments, sits as non-executive chairman of Harmony Gold, serves as deputy chairman of Sanlam, and has been a non-executive director of Absa Group since 2004. He acquired Mamelodi Sundowns football club in 2003 and has served as president of the Confederation of African Football since 2021. Forbes estimates his net worth at approximately $3.7 billion. In 2013 he joined The Giving Pledge, committing to give at least half of his wealth to charitable causes.
