BHP must stop funding legal action to end Marianas Dam claim, London court hears

BHP must stop funding legal action aimed at stopping Brazilian municipalities from pursuing multi-billion pound claims over one of Brazil’s worst environmental disasters, the High Court in London ruled on Tuesday.

More than 720,000 Brazilians, including some 50 municipalities, are suing BHP over the 2015 collapse of the Mariana dam, which was owned and operated by its joint venture Samarco with Brazilian iron ore miner Vale.

The dam collapse triggered a wave of toxic waste that killed 19 people, left hundreds homeless, flooded forests and polluted the entire length of the Doce River.

Plaintiffs in deadly Mariana Dam collapse file injunction against BHP and Vale

The plaintiffs filed an injunction against BHP in June after Brazilian mining association IBRAM filed a petition with Brazil’s Supreme Court seeking to prevent the municipalities from pursuing the London case on the grounds that it posed a threat to Brazil’s sovereignty.

BHP, the world’s largest miner by market value, is a member of IBRAM and funded it to bring its case to the Supreme Court.

BHP, which accepted the order, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this month, BHP reached an agreement with Vale to share equally the cost of damages related to the proceedings in Britain, in which it will continue to be the defendant.

In March, a new complaint was filed against Vale and Samarco’s Dutch subsidiary in the Netherlands, in which BHP is not a defendant.

The London trial is separate from the dispute in Brazil, which focuses primarily on claims by local governments, not individuals.

The trial, one of the most important in English legal history, began in 2018. The first trial on key legal issues is expected to begin in October.

In June, Vale, BHP and Samarco presented Brazilian authorities with a $26.09 billion offer to pay for repairs following the dam collapse, after Brazil rejected a previous offer.

BHP, which denies liability, pointed to the reparations and compensation programs implemented by the Renova Foundation, a reparations program created in 2016 by Samarco and its shareholders, which has funded more than $6 billion in rehousing and rehabilitation for people affected by the disaster.

(Reporting by Clara Denina and Sam Tobin; Editing by Christina Fincher)

Photograph: In this Oct. 13, 2016, file photo, a cow skull is tied to a fence post outside a hamlet destroyed by a mudslide triggered by the Nov. 5, 2015, rupture of a dam holding back a giant pond of mining waste in Paracatu, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)

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