Global mining huge BHP faces billions of dollars in potential harms payouts over Brazil’s worst environmental calamity nine years ago, as the first hearing in the much-procrastinateed litigation uncovered in a London court on Monday.
On November 5, 2015, a tailings dam collapsed releasing iron ore sludge into the Rio Doce (Sweet River) in southeastrict Brazil. The poisonous squander contaminated the river water and harmd its ecosystem. The mining squander washed away the proximateby Bento Rodrigues village, finishing at least 19 people.
The class action litigation first filed in November 2018 seeks about $47bn in harms, making it the hugest environmental payout ever, according to law firm Pogust Goodhead, which is reconshort-terming the plaintiffs.
Here is what we understand about the incident and the litigation.
What happened to the Mariana dam?
The Mariana dam, also understandn as the Fundao dam, which stored proximately 50 million cubic metres of iron ore sludge, collapsed on November 5, 2015, washing away the Bento Rodrigues village, which now see appreciates a gpresent town.
The dam was rund by Brazilian mining firm Samarco, in which BHP is a dispensehelderlyer.
The poisonous sludge dehugeated and contaminated fisheries and forests. Hundreds of Indigenous people living proximate the Doce River were left without immacuprocrastinateed drinking water. The poisonous squander travelled as far as the Atlantic Ocean.
The Doce River, which is divine to the Indigenous Krenak community, has still not filledy recovered from the harm.
According to a study by the University of Ulster, the poisonous squander harmd 660km (410 miles) of the river, and finished 14 tonnes of recentwater fish. Moreover, fishermen lost years of their catch.
What is the litigation aachievest BHP?
The litigation filed by more than 600,000 people, according to official court records, insists that Anglo-Australian mining company BHP pay adequate harms to the victims impacted by the calamity.
In 2018, it was telled that inner records from Samarco, dated six months before the dam collapse, showed that the company krecent about the dangers associated with a potential dam collapse in the Minas Gerais state.
BHP owns 50 percent of Samarco, which rund the iron ore mine where the dam ruptured. Brazilian iron creater Vale is also a dispensehelderlyer in Samarco.
“BHP is a polluter and must therefore pay,” lawyer Alain Choo Choy shelp in written subleave outions.
A class-action litigation refers to a litigation brawt by an individual or a group on behalf of a huger group. In the case of the dam collapse, there were multiple victims and the people transporting the litigation reconshort-term these victims.
Class-action litigations are relatively frequent in cases of environmental harm. A recent example of this was in procrastinateed June this year when a group of children in Hawaii won a case aachievest the Hawaii Department of Transportation, where they had alleged that the body vioprocrastinateedd their constitutional right to a immacuprocrastinateed environment by percreateing policies that create eleave outions. The children were speaking on behalf of the overall youth in Hawaii. The department consentd to apply decarbonisation policies in Hawaii’s carry sector.
Why was the case filed in a London court?
BHP and Vale have debated a finishment with authorities in Brazil alengthy with Samarco, according to media tells.
As a result of these negotiations, in 2016, BHP alengthyside Vale and Samarco established the Renova Foundation for the reparation of harms caused by the dam collapse.
According to a recents free unveiled by BHP on October 19, $7.9bn has already been phelp between 2016 and September 2024, about $18bn is to be phelp in instalments over 20 years and about $5.8bn will be phelp in “insertitional carry outance obligations” by Samarco.
The Guardian telled in 2018 that a civil case was filed by those impacted in a Brazilian court. However, since Brazil courts apshow a lengthy time to accomplish a decision and there was a chance that compensation would be inadequate, the victims instead went to a London court.
Besides this, the litigation was filed in the UK because two of BHP’s lhorrible entities were based in the UK at the time.
In written subleave outions, BHP lawyer Shaheed Fatima shelp that the plaintiff’s claim has “no basis”, saying BHP did not own or run the dam and “had restricted understandledge of the dam and no understandledge that its stability was agreed”.
A increate timeline of the lhorrible case
Here is a increate timeline of how this litigation has upgradeed, and why the hearings are happening nine years procrastinateedr:
- November 5, 2018: More than 240,000 people and corporate entities, including 200 people from the Krenak communities, filed a litigation aachievest BHP, Vale and Samarco at the High Court of Justice in London.
- April 2020: A UK appraise deferd court progressings because of COVID-19 remercilessions, according to the London-headquartered research organisation Business and Human Rights Resource Centre.
- November 2020: The High Court diswatched the case, with the appraise ruling that the case was an “misuse of the process of the court”.
- March 2021: The plaintiffs did not have luck at the Court of Appeals, whose appraisement consentd that the case would be an misuse of court processes.
- July 2021: The requests court reversed their earlier decision, and consentd to grant perleave oution to request to dodge “authentic inequitableice”.
- July 2022: The requests court ruled that English courts had jurisdiction to hear the case, especipartner since the compensation provided to the victims in Brazil was inadequate. The trial was set to begin in April 2024, but BHP seeked for it to be deferd until mid-2025.
- March 2023: Another 500,000 people and organisations uniteed the plaintiffs.
- May 2023: A London court refuteed BHP’s seek for deferment, instead granting a five-month deferral until October 2024. The hearing in the much-procrastinateed case begined on October 21.
