London (AFP) – Australian mining giant BHP will face trial before a British court from April next year to determine how much it must pay in damages to victims of a 2015 dam collapse in Brazil, lawyers said Wednesday. In one of Brazil’s worst environmental disasters, an iron-ore mine run by a firm co-owned by BHP unleashed a deluge of toxic mud into villages, fields, rainforest, rivers, and the ocean, killing 19 people.
In November, the High Court in London found BHP “strictly liable” for the disaster following a mammoth trial, which could lead to hefty damages. Victims of the disaster attended the hearing in London, where the court set a start date for the compensation trial of April 2027, with closing submissions scheduled for March 2028, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs.
“We are demanding what is owed to us,” Brazilian Indigenous leader Marilda Lyrio de Oliveira, from Aracruz in the state of Espirito Santo, told AFP. “We hope for a just outcome, because the impact was enormous, the crime was enormous.” Many people are dying of cancer, something that didn’t exist before,” added Lyrio de Oliveira, as she stood alongside about a dozen other victims. “We have physical and mental health problems because we can no longer carry out our former activities.”
The law firm Pogust Goodhead, representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement that of the more than 600,000 people originally involved in the case, many had already reached “full and final” compensation settlements in Brazil, making them ineligible for further damages. It said that lowered the number of plaintiffs in the case to 380,000. BHP had earlier insisted the same, pointing out that it had already signed an agreement with the Brazilian authorities in 2024 to compensate victims. It argued that “approximately 240,000 claimants” in the UK action should have their claims “discontinued.”
– ‘Shattered our lives’ –
Dissatisfied with the proceedings in Brazil, the victims turned to the British courts two years ago, seeking £36 billion ($49 billion) in compensation. At the time of the disaster, one of BHP’s global headquarters was in Britain. “The suffering was so immense that it shattered our lives and interrupted our dreams,” Ana Paula Auxiliadora Alexandre, who lost her husband in the tragedy, told AFP.
“For 10 years, we fought for justice. The fact that a mega-corporation has been convicted here in England makes me think that the British justice system is more diligent than the Brazilian one,” she added. The trial at the High Court in London ran from October 2024 to March 2025. The mine was managed by Samarco, co-owned by BHP and Brazilian miner Vale.
© 2024 AFP
