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More than 620 thousand claimants and compensation requests for 47 billion dollars. However it ends, the class action against Bhp for the Mariana dam disaster in Brazil will remain in the annals of law as one of the most important and significant ever debated in the Old Continent. The legal case came to life on Monday 21st, with the first hearing at the High Court in London, which is called to decide on events that happened almost nine years ago on the other side of the world, thousands of kilometers away.
If the verdict is in favor of the prosecution – which alongside individuals also represents around 2 thousand companies, 46 local administrations and 65 NGOs – the Australian mining giant could be forced to pay damages greater than the combined total of the compensation paid by Volkswagen for Dieselgate and by BP for the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
The trial phase of the trial, which will last 12 weeks, opened with polemical tones inside and outside the courtroom. The plaintiff’s lawyers accused BHP of having tried “with cynicism and determination” to escape its responsibilities, while representatives of some of the many organizations that have been pushing for full justice to be done for almost nine years protested in front of the court.
The accident dates back to the afternoon of 5 November 2015 and concerns Samarco plants, an equal joint venture between Bhp and the Brazilian Vale, which also ended up in the crosshairs of a class action, but in the Netherlands. The failure of the dam, which contained the tailings basin of an iron mine in the state of Minas Gerais, caused the release of over 40 billion cubic meters of water and sludge containing arsenic, lead, mercury and other dangerous substances: a gigantic wave toxic, which wiped out entire villages, killing 19 people. There was environmental damage in areas up to 700km away, including pollution of the Doce River, held sacred by the indigenous Krenak tribe.
Bhp – the largest mining company in the world by capitalisation, with a value of 145 billion dollars – was also listed in London at the time, while today the stock is traded only in Sydney, Australia, where the group has its headquarters. It was the Court of Appeal that allowed her to be brought to trial in Great Britain, which overturned a previous ruling in 2022.
