Vale joins BHP as co-defendant in British courts

The Business Courts of England and Wales have rejected a request by the Brazilian mining giant Vale and decided to make it a co-defendant in a gigantic class-action suit alongside Anglo-Australian mining company BHP. Hundreds of thousands of victims took action against BHP following the 2015 collapse of a tailings dam owned by Brazilian firm Samarco — a joint venture between BHP and Vale. 

The Court held a two-day hearing back in July to hear all parts involved. Vale argued that the justice system in England and Wales does not have jurisdiction over the case and that damages imposed in the UK-filed class-action suit should consider amounts already received by the same plaintiffs in Brazil. BHP presented its defense last December, denying the claims in their entirety and filing a contribution claim against Vale in connection with the case in England and Wales. BHP believes that if it loses the suit, Vale should contribute to plaintiff payments. Now, Vale has until November to present its defense.

In July 2022, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales unanimously confirmed that its justice system does have jurisdiction to hear the case of more than 700,000 victims of one of Brazil’s worst-ever environmental disasters, making it the largest collective claim in British legal history, and perhaps the world.

• Listen all about it on our podcast: Explaining Brazil #255: Will justice be served for Mariana?

The case

In November 2015, a tailings dam in Mariana (in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais) collapsed due to safety failures, spilling the equivalent of 25,000 Olympic swimming pools of toxic sludge. Nineteen people were killed, towns were buried, and entire ecosystems were destroyed.

In 2016, Samarco, Vale, and BHP signed an agreement with Brazilian federal and state authorities, pledging to create the ‘Renova Foundation’ to coordinate and implement compensation measures.

Two years later, in 2018, international law firm Pogust Goodhead filed a suit against BHP in the High Court of Manchester, England, on behalf of more than 200,000 plaintiffs from indigenous Krenak communities whose lands run along the banks of the Rio Doce river, as well as 25 municipalities, more than 500 companies, and the Catholic Church.

Members of the Guarani, Tupiniquim, and Pataxos indigenous communities and a significant number of Afro-Brazilian quilombolas joined the case earlier this year, bringing the total number of plaintiffs to 700,000. The amount of compensation sought has also risen from GBP 5 billion to GBP 36 billion.

BHP believes the case in the United Kingdom duplicates matters already covered by the Renova Foundation as well as legal proceedings in Brazil. It claims the Renova Foundation had spent BRL 28.1 billion (USD 5.8 billion) on comprehensive remediation and compensation programs by the end of last year — including over BRL 13.5 billion paid in indemnities and emergency financial assistance to approximately 410,000 people.

The foundation, however, has faced several legal challenges from victims and local officials. There are reports of delays in the reconstruction works in districts devastated by the tragedy and in the payment of compensation. Since 2021, the National Justice Council has been mediating a process to renegotiate the 2016 agreement that created the Renova Foundation.

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