BMW approached the supplier Managem and requested additional information from the company, a spokesman for the Bavarian car manufacturer told the Reuters news agency. “If there is any misconduct, it must be stopped.”
The BMW spokesman said the first allegations against Management had already emerged in the summer. At the time, the company provided BMW with documents that looked credible. The mine operator’s environmental certificates are up to date, he added.
A request to Managem for a statement initially went unanswered.
Mine operator owned by the royal family
The “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the NDR and the WDR reported that there were serious violations of environmental and occupational safety rules at the mine in Morocco. Significantly elevated arsenic levels were found in water samples. In addition, Managem does not comply with international standards for the protection of workers and takes action against critical unions.
Managem is majority owned by the Moroccan royal family and claims to operate a number of mines in several African countries.
Cobalt is needed, among other things, for electric car batteries. By far the largest part of the world’s cobalt reserves are in the Congo, where child labor still occurs, particularly in small mines. For this reason, BMW no longer sources cobalt from the Congo, said the BMW spokesman. The people of Munich get around a fifth of their cobalt needs from Morocco; the rest comes from Australia.