On November 15th 2015, the state of Minas Gerais suffered a devastating dam break which polluted their water, destroyed the residents’ homes, collapsed their agriculture and claimed 19 lives.
While Brazil is no stranger to a natural disaster, see the Itaipú Dam disaster or the recent floods in Porto Alegre, this particular case is interesting because of the legal response that was triggered by hundreds of victims who wanted to sue for liability against the owners of the dam. The dam’s co-owners Samarco of Brazil and BHP of Australia were charged separately for the offence against the people of Minas Gerais.
While this seems fairly uncontroversial, this has stepped into completely new territory with universal law. Before the incident BHP and Samarco each owned 50% of the company. Once the incident with the dam occurred, they agreed that whatever settlement fees they were to pay would be a half-and-half split between the two. The public pressed for settlements heavily and Samarco was sued for R$ 170 billion (equivalent to roughly 23 billion pounds). However, Australia didn’t want to deal with foreign affairs and didn’t feel justified in handling the case. Fortunately for Australia, both the Brazilian Supreme Court and the UK Supreme Court offered to handle the case. Additionally, the claimants’ lawyers argued that the trial ought to be held in London, as the BHP headquarters “were in the UK at the time of the dam collapse.”
One of the victims of the incident, Gelvana Rodrigues, lost her son. She is among the 620,000 people taking BHP to court. Rodrigues’s son, Thiago, was seven years old when the dam collapsed, sending toxic fluids into their home and killing him. “I spent three days not eating or sleeping, I just wanted to find my son,” When rescuers found his body, she said, “That day my life ended, because I lived for him.”
The dilemma we face now is that since the initial settlement for R$ 170 billion, the victims of the incident have recently pressured the UK courts to sue the BHP for the incident. Many of the victims of the dam collapse were unhappy with the original settlement and thus, nine years later, have successfully convinced the UK Supreme Court to sue BHP. The Australian company could now be facing a settlement fee of up to R$47 billion (roughly £36 billion), even though the estimated cost of covering damages to the city’s infrastructure alone was R$100 billion.
This sparked much controversy, mainly because the company had already helped pay their share of the settlement fee and many people view it as excessive to charge them more. On top of that, many questions arise such as: Should the UK have gotten involved? Is it good they are complying with the victims’ demands? Should the Brazilian courts have charged more while they had the chance? As of yet, these questions remain unanswered.
