Golding has started legal proceedings to block his suspension and the hearing.

Hosken Consolidated Investments, a South African black-empowerment investment company, suspended Executive Chairman Marcel Golding pending a disciplinary hearing into allegations of gross misconduct.

The charges were “found to be of a very serious nature warranting disciplinary action,” the Cape Town-based company said in a statement today. Golding has started legal proceedings to block his suspension and the hearing, which HCI will fight, the company said.

HCI is the largest investor in hotel and casino operator Tsogo Sun and owns controlling stakes in a bus service, independent broadcaster e.tv and a bingo center operator. The company’s largest shareholder with a 29% stake is the SACTWU investment group, a financial vehicle for the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union. Hosken shares have gained 9% this year, valuing the company at R18 billion ($1.6 billion).

Golding is a non-executive director of Tsogo, which owns more than 90 hotels and Montecasino, Johannesburg’s Tuscany- themed entertainment complex. A phone message left after business hours at the Tsogo Sun corporate office wasn’t immediately returned.

South Africa has black economic empowerment legislation to make up for discrimination during the apartheid era when non- white South Africans were hindered from participating in the economy. The laws include compelling the sale of stakes in companies to non-white South Africans.

Golding was Deputy General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers of South Africa from 1987 to 1994 and a Member of Parliament under Nelson Mandela until 1997, according to Who’s Who of Southern Africa.

Source – Moneyweb – from Bloomberg News – John Bowker and Paul Burkhardt, Bloomberg