Mark Antrobus SC was awarded the status of senior counsel in 2006, and he has served as an Acting High Court Judge. He has practised as an advocate in Johannesburg since 1984 to date after he obtained a BA. LLB from WITS University and first practised as an attorney at Deneys Reitz Inc. (now Norton Rose Fulbright) and later at the Legal Resources Centre, a public interest law firm. 

Mark has over forty years of experience in a general practice litigating commercial, contractual, employment, mining rights and mining health and safety matters. He has acted in numerous High Court administrative law review applications in mining rights disputes and land disputes. 

In the field of ADR, Mark trained as both a mediator and arbitrator in the 1980’s with the Independent Mediation Service of South Africa (IMSSA). For many years he was a board member of IMSSA. He has since conducted hundreds of both mediations and private arbitrations. Currently, he is a member of the Tokiso Mediation and Rule 41A Mediation panels as well as the Commercial Arbitration and Employment panels. He is a member of the Arbitration Foundation of South Africa (AFSA) Mediation and the Domestic Arbitration panels. 

As a mediator, Mark has successfully conducted numerous commercial mediations as well as a court appointed mediation in the sphere of local government. In the labour arena, he has mediated disputes ranging from individual dismissals to mass retrenchment disputes and annual conditions of service negotiations. These disputes ranged from disputes at factory level to national disputes affecting many thousands of employees. Mark has mediated in commercial matters including disputes concerning manufacturing contracts, building contracts, professional fees, intellectual property, local government land issues, and the tourism industry. 

As an adjudicator, Mark has sat as an Acting Judge in the High Court in commercial disputes. He served as an Assessor in the Labour Appeal Court and for seven years was the senior Appeal Tribunal member for a major National Bargaining Council. He has arbitrated an international commercial arbitration. He has been appointed as a private arbitrator in hundreds of voluntary arbitrations including executive dismissals, retrenchments, mass dismissals, job grading systems, bargaining units, contract and statutory interpretation. He has also conducted several interest arbitrations in which he was briefed as a private arbitrator to determine disputes of interest such as wages or other conditions of employment. He has arbitrated commercial disputes inter alia concerning property leases, statutory and contract interpretation, insurance and intellectual property in the music industry. 

Mark’s work in mining law has involved mineral and mining rights disputes and land matters and has included advice regarding legislative changes in mining rights and communal land law as well as the impact of such changes on the rights of indigenous tribes. Mark represented the mining industry at the 1995 Commission of Inquiry into Safety and Health in the Mining Industry. 

Mark appeared for participants in various commissions of enquiry, including the Margo Commission into the Helderberg Aircraft Crash (1987), the Leon Commission of Inquiry into Safety and Health in the Mining Industry (1994) and the Commission of Enquiry into the Ellis Park Stadium Soccer Disaster chaired by Ngoepe JP (2001). Mark was appointed by the Minister of Minerals and Energy to co-chair the Enquiry into the death of 19 persons in the Mponeng Mine Disaster (2003). 

Mark presented and examined an ADR course at WITS University for one year. For Monash University, he developed a short course in the Law relating to Private Schools, which course he presented for two years.