The applicants owned approximately 505 hectares of land situated within the proclaimed Coega Industrial Development Zone (IDZ). Over a period of about nine years, the Coega Development Corporation (CDC), a state-owned company tasked with developing the IDZ, repeatedly threatened to have the land expropriated if negotiations for its purchase failed. Two attempted expropriations by the Premier of the Eastern Cape were set aside as unlawful, and no valid expropriation was ever effected. The applicants alleged that the repeated threats, related conduct (including temporary spoliation and public statements), and failure by the respondents to decide whether to expropriate deprived them of the use and enjoyment of their property and diminished its market value, in breach of section 25(1) of the Constitution and the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA).