A £5 billion (€5.9 billion) lawsuit brought against BHP by 202,600 Brazilian claimants who are suing over the South American country’s biggest environmental disaster can proceed in the English courts, three judges ruled on Friday.
The Court of Appeal ruled that the lawsuit, which will be one of the biggest cases by value in the English courts, can go ahead to trial. The judges overturned an earlier decision that the courts should not hear the case, which was filed in 2018.
The lawsuit centres around Brazil’s worst ever environmental disaster in 2015, when the Fundão Dam collapsed, releasing about 40 million cubic metres of tailings, a form of solid waste, from iron ore mining.
In the lawsuit, the Brazilian claimants allege their homes and livelihoods have been damaged by the disaster and are claiming compensation of at least £5 billion.
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The collapse and flood killed 19 people, destroyed entire villages and caused damage to the River Doce system over its entire course to the sea, some 400 miles away. The dam was owned and operated by Samarco, a Brazilian company jointly owned by Vale and BHP Billiton Brasil, part of BHP group.
The Court of Appeal said the overlap with the Brazilian legal proceedings was “relatively limited”. “The vast majority of claimants who have recovered damages have only received very modest sums in respect of moral damages for interruption to their water supply,” the judges said. — Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022
