Brazil dam disaster court case will be heard in English courts

The case is currently being brought on behalf of more than 200,000 victims of a major flood ensuing from the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam at the Germano iron ore mine near Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil, in November 2015.

The collapse unveiled 44 million cubic metres of contaminated drinking water into the Doce River, wrecked villages downstream of the dam and killed 19 people today.

Three judges in the Court of Attractiveness have now ruled that the scenario must proceed by means of the English courts, saying that there was a sensible prospect that a demo in England would generate a “real and respectable benefit” for the victims.

The lawsuit seeks to hold the BHP group accountable for its position in the collapse of the Mariana dam by means of litigation in England, where by the organization was based at the time of the disaster. Its subsidiary BHP Brazil, and a Brazilian mining business, Vale, personal Samarco Mineração, the joint enterprise enterprise liable for managing the dam. 

Throughout a four-working day listening to in April 2022 BHP experienced argued that the victims of the catastrophe would be in a position to get comprehensive redress through the modest promises courts in Brazil, but the judges dismissed BHP’s attempts to block the scenario.

In a 107-website page choice signed by all three judges the courtroom stated: “Our summary is that the remedies available in Brazil are not so certainly satisfactory that it can be claimed to be pointless and wasteful to pursue proceedings in [England]”.

“The extensive majority of claimants who have recovered damages have only received really modest sums in respect of ethical damages for interruption to their h2o supply.”

BHP explained it would look at an charm to the UK Supreme Court docket. A spokesman for the corporation claimed: “We will proceed to protect the action, which we believe remains avoidable as it duplicates issues currently included by the current and ongoing do the job of the Renova Foundation below the supervision of the Brazilian courts and legal proceedings in Brazil,”

The Renova Foundation, financed by BHP and Vale, was set up in 2016 to restore and compensate for the damages induced by the breach of the Fundão dam.

Vale also owned the Córrego do Feijão tailings dam at the Brumadinho iron ore mine at Minas Gerais which collapsed in January 2019, killing 270 folks.

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