https://www.miningweekly.com
Financial|Iron Ore|Mining|Waste|Water|Environmental|Waste
Financial|Iron Ore|Mining|Waste|Water|Environmental|Waste
financial|iron-ore|mining|waste-company|water|environmental|waste

BHP Group seeks delay to Brazil dam court case

29th March 2023

By: Reuters

  

Font size: - +

LONDON - Mining group BHP Group BHP is seeking to delay a potential 36-billion pound ($44-billion) London lawsuit over Brazil's worst environmental disaster as it needs more time to prepare, the company's lawyers said on Wednesday.

The world's biggest miner by market value is being sued by around 720 000 Brazilians over the 2015 collapse of the Fundao dam, owned by the Samarco joint venture it holds with Brazilian iron-ore mining company Vale.

BHP's lawyers said the 2024 trial should be delayed to allow Vale to participate and to give BHP more time to go through an "enormous" number of potentially relevant documents.

BHP's lawyer Alexander Hutton argued in court filings that the trial should be adjourned until at least June 2025, saying that pushing ahead with a 2024 trial would be "extremely unfair" to BHP.

A 14-month delay to the scheduled April 2024 start would take the trial well into 2025, a decade after the dam disaster that killed 19 people when mud and toxic mining waste swept into the Doce river, obliterating villages, contaminating water supplies and reaching the Atlantic Ocean more than 650 km away.

BHP denies liability and in December applied to join Vale to the case. Vale has challenged the London High Court's jurisdiction to determine the claim, which will be heard in July.

Simon Salzedo, representing Vale, argued that BHP has no case against Vale and that, if it did, any lawsuit should be brought in Brazil.

BHP said in a statement: "The UK case is unnecessary as it duplicates issues already covered by the ongoing work of the Renova Foundation and/or the subject of ongoing legal proceedings in Brazil."

Reparation and compensation programs implemented by the Renova Foundation funded $6 billion in financial aid by the end of 2022, BHP added.

"When the lengths of the different phases are added up, it is apparent that BHP envisage a trial process that will extend closer to 2030 than to 2025, particularly if there should be appeals," Tom Goodhead of law firm Pogust Goodhead, which represents the claimants, said in a witness statement submitted to the court.

The lawsuit, one of the largest in English legal history, first began in 2018 and was thrown out of court two years later, before the Court of Appeal ruled in July that it could proceed.

BHP has applied to the Supreme Court to end the case without trial following the Court of Appeal's decision last year.

Lawyers representing the claimants said earlier this month that the number of claimants had increased by around 500 000, pushing the potential bill to $44 billion, including interest, if they are successful in the case.

Edited by Reuters

Comments

Showroom

Weir Minerals Africa and Middle East
Weir Minerals Africa and Middle East

Weir Minerals Europe, Middle East and Africa is a global supplier of excellent minerals solutions, including pumps, valves, hydrocyclones,...

VISIT SHOWROOM 
SAIMC (Society for Automation, Instrumentation, Mechatronics and Control)
SAIMC (Society for Automation, Instrumentation, Mechatronics and Control)

Education: Consulting with member companies to obtain the optimal benefits from their B-BBEE spending, skills resources as well as B-BBEE points

VISIT SHOWROOM 

Latest Multimedia

sponsored by

Hyphen, Eva mine, ferrochrome price make headlines
Hyphen, Eva mine, ferrochrome price make headlines
27th March 2024
Resources Watch
Resources Watch
27th March 2024

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION







sq:0.22 0.258s - 137pq - 2rq
Subscribe Now