UK court finds mining firm liable for Brazil’s worst environmental disaster

The High Court in London found mining company BHP liable for the 2015 dam collapse in Brazil, known as the country’s worst-ever environmental disaster.

The dam collapse killed 19 people, polluted the river and destroyed hundreds of homes.

The civil suit, which represents more than 600,000 people, including civilians, local governments and businesses, was valued at up to 36 billion pounds ($48 billion).

BHP said it would appeal the ruling and would continue to fight the lawsuit, and said several claimants in the London lawsuit had already received compensation in Brazil.

The dam, located in Marianas in southeastern Brazil, was owned by Samarco, a joint venture between mining giants Vale and BHP.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers successfully argued that the trial should be held in London because BHP’s headquarters “were in the United Kingdom at the time of the dam collapse.”

A separate lawsuit has been filed against Samarco’s second parent company, Brazilian mining company Vale, in the Netherlands, with more than 70,000 plaintiffs.

The dam was used to store waste resulting from iron ore mining. When it exploded, it unleashed tens of millions of cubic meters of toxic waste and slurry. The sludge swept through communities, destroying hundreds of homes and poisoning the river.

In her Supreme Court ruling, Justice Finola O’Farrell said that continuing to raise the height of the dam when it was not safe to do so was the “direct and immediate cause” of the dam’s collapse, meaning BHP was liable under Brazilian law.

BHP is expected to appeal the ruling.

Brandon Craig, BHP’s head of metals in the Americas, said in a statement that 240,000 plaintiffs in the London lawsuit “have already received compensation in Brazil.”

He added: “We believe this will significantly reduce the size and value of claims in the UK class action.”

The lawsuit witnessed various clashes between the British company representing the plaintiffs, Pogust Goodhead, and BHP.

BHP has always denied liability and said the London lawsuit replicates legal actions and compensation and remediation programs in Brazil.

BHP and Vale have set up an organization called the Renova Foundation tasked with compensating victims. It offered them either cash compensation, or a home in a new city built by the corporation to replace Novo Pinto, and spent billions of dollars in remedial and compensation measures for hundreds of thousands of people.

In June, a presentation by BHP and Vale’s Samarco project said about 130,000 people in Brazil had reached settlements with them. In response, Bogost-Goodhead claimed that the companies had pressured claimants “to settle their claims for far less than their true value” and that it would seek compensation for the £1.3bn in unpaid fees it lost as a result.

It claimed that the $30.3 billion compensation agreement that Brazil signed with BHP, Vale and Samarco in October 2024 prevented claimants from discussing the deal with the company or paying its legal fees.

The company said it incurred $1 billion in borrowing costs to finance the English case.

BHP said it rejected Bogost Goodhead’s allegations in their entirety and called into question their “factual and legal basis.”

It said the allegations were “baseless” and that BHP would “vigorously contest” them. A company spokesperson also said the company still believes Brazil is the most appropriate, effective and efficient place to compensate for the dam collapse.

But there were also parallel allegations that Bogost Goodhead – which promotes itself as a firm representing human rights and environmental law – tried to take advantage of “vulnerable” Brazilians.

During the proceedings, the company was accused of “misleading” vulnerable Brazilians for its own gain by a Brazilian judge in the state of Minas Gerais.

Bogost Goodhead dismissed the accusation at the time as “baseless.”

In a case brought by prosecutors and public defenders in Brazil against Bogost Goodhead, the judge criticized several “allegedly abusive clauses” in Bogost Goodhead’s contracts with the Brazilians who had been harmed.

Among these, it alleges that the law firm engaged in “misleading advertising” taking into account the “extreme vulnerability of those affected”.

It also alleges “unjustified charges on compensation amounts extrajudicially obtained in Brazil” which it said constitute “unjust enrichment that diverts essential resources from those affected” and “excessive” penalties on claimants who have terminated their contracts which it said “dissuade” them from joining national compensation programmes.

The former Brazilian ambassador to London and Washington, Rubens Barbosa, told the BBC earlier this year that he believed this amounted to spreading disinformation in Brazil.

Barbosa said bringing the case to London “hinders efforts to solve the problem domestically” and “extremely vulnerable Brazilians have been misled” by the contracts.