BHP found liable in fatal collapse, court rules
Australia’s largest miner, BHP, has been found liable to compensate victims devastated by the collapse of a tailings dam in Brazil in 2015 that killed 19 people, spewed millions of tonnes of waste into a major river system and left hundreds homeless.
Melbourne-based BHP has been locked in disputes for nearly a decade over its role in the catastrophic bursting of the Fundao tailings dam in 2015, considered to be Brazil’s worst ever environmental disaster.
Homes lay in ruins in Bento Rodrigues, Minas Gerais, Brazil, after the Samarco dam burst on November 5, 2015. Credit: AP
The miner, which jointly owned the site through its 50:50 Samarco joint venture, has spent billions of dollars funding remediation and compensation, but has also been fighting large-scale court cases brought by people who lost their houses and livelihoods.
On Friday, London’s High Court ruled that BHP was liable to compensate hundreds of thousands of affected Brazilians.
“The risk of the dam collapse was foreseeable,” Justice Finola O’Farrell said.
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BHP on Friday confirmed that the English High Court had found it liable under Brazilian law for the 2015 dam failure. “Any assessment of damages will be determined in future second and third stage trials expected to complete in 2028 or 2028,” it said.
The mining giant said it intended to appeal the court’s decision and continued to defend the lawsuit launched against it. BHP had supported extensive remediation and compensation efforts in Brazil since 2015, including compensating more than 610,000 people.
Brandon Craig, BHP’s head of mining in the Americas, said on Friday that 240,000 of those who had received compensation were claimants in the London lawsuit.
