UK lawsuit against BHP over Samarco dam disaster key to justice: Brazil mayor

A Brazilian mayor, part of a 200,000-strong group claim against BHP over a 2015 burst dam, has told an English court that suing the Anglo-Australian mining giant in Brazil would be like David fighting Goliath — without the biblical ending.

Mario Antonio Coelho, mayor of Brazil’s Barra Longa municipality, told a jurisdictional hearing in Manchester that bringing the £5 billion ($9b) case in England over Brazil’s worst environmental disaster is the only route to proper justice, court documents show.

Duarte Junior, the mayor of Mariana, who has travelled to Manchester with Rio Doce’s mayor Silverio da Luz, urged BHP to listen to Brazilians.

“Since BHP went to Brazil and did not respect our rights, we came to England and our rights will be respected here,” he told Reuters in an email.

BHP has called for the lawsuit, which is the largest group action in English legal history, to be struck out or suspended, alleging it duplicates Brazilian proceedings and that victims are receiving — or will receive — full redress.

The world’s largest miner by market value last week labelled the English legal action pointless and wasteful.

But representing the claimants, lawyer Charles Hollander told the court on Monday there “is virtually nil chance of there ever being a trial” in relation to a 155 billion reais ($42b) class action filed by federal prosecutors in Brazil.

The collapse of the Fundao tailings dam, which stored mining waste and is owned by the Samarco joint venture between BHP and Brazilian iron ore mining company Vale, killed 19 and poured roughly 40 million cubic metres of sludge into communities, the Rio Doce river and Atlantic Ocean 650 km away.

Reuters