London judges backtrack to revive $9.43-billion Brazil dam lawsuit against mining giant BHP
Source: ABC (Australia)
London judges backtrack to revive $9.43-billion Brazil dam lawsuit against mining giant BHP
28 July 2021
London's Court of Appeal has made a U-turn by agreeing to reopen a 5 billion pound ($9.4 billion) lawsuit by 200,000 claimants against Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP, reviving a case over a dam rupture behind Brazil's worst environmental disaster.
Lawyers for one of the largest group claims in English legal history have been pushing to resurrect the lawsuit against BHP since a lower court struck it out as an abuse of process last year — and a Court of Appeal judge upheld that decision in March.
But in a highly unusual move, three Appeal Court judges reversed course and granted permission for appeal, saying they believed it had a "real prospect of success".
The collapse in 2015 of the Fundao dam, owned by the Samarco venture between BHP and Brazilian iron ore mining giant Vale, killed 19 people and obliterated villages as a torrent of more than 40 million cubic metres of mining waste swept into the Doce River and Atlantic Ocean over 650 kilometres away.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-28/apn-bhp-dam-lawsuit-reopened-brazil-dam/100328666
