What's new
  • We don't have any responsibilities about the news being sent in this site. Legal News are automatically being collected from sources and submitted in this forum by feed readers. Source of each news is set in the news and a link to its source is always added.
    (Any News older than 21 days from its post time will be deleted automatically!)

Jurist Class action suit over Brazil dam collapse begins in England

Status
Not open for further replies.
  • Thread starter
  • Staff
  • #1

Dadparvar

Staff member
Nov 11, 2016
10,588
0
6
The trial for a class action lawsuit against Anglo-Australian multinational mining company BHP began on Monday in England, with 620,000 claimants seeking damages for the collapse of a tailings pond dam in Brazil that killed 19 and released 50 million cubic metres of toxic waste into the environment.

There are additional class action lawsuits as a result of the collapse currently underway in Brazil, the Netherlands and Australia. A preliminary settlement agreement in Brazil that would see the companies that owned the dam pay a total of approximately US$31.7 billion was announced on Saturday, but the settlement agreement has yet to be finalized as negotiations between the ownership companies are ongoing.

BHP argues that the lawsuit in the English court should be dismissed because it duplicates earlier legal proceedings in Brazil. Pogust Goodhead, the law firm representing the victims of the dam collapse in England, contends that the Brazilian settlement is irrelevant because it was negotiated behind closed doors and the claimants in the English case were not consulted or included. Pogust Goodhead claims that the tentative settlement in Brazil provides the individual victims of the disaster with no adequate remedy.

The claimants in the English case include approximately 620,000 individual victims, Indigenous communities, 46 municipalities, 1,500 companies and faith based institutions.

The dam was owned by Samarco, a company jointly owned by BHP and Vale. BHP submitted a claim that Vale should be held jointly responsible in the English case if BHP loses. Vale is also currently fighting a US$3.8B class action lawsuit in the Netherlands, which was launched in March.

The collapse of the Fundão dam occurred on November 5, 2015 in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. A mining tailings pond was allegedly overfilled, resulting in the failure of the dam and the spilling of toxic mud. As a result, 19 people were killed and many villages destroyed.

The post Class action suit over Brazil dam collapse begins in England appeared first on JURIST - News.

Continue reading...

Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top