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British-Australian mining company BHP has been found guilty by a British court and will have to pay compensation to victims of the 2015 Marianas (MG) Fundan dam collapse. BHP is the owner of Samarco, which operated the dam, along with Brazil’s Vale.
The announcement was made by the High Court in London this Friday (November 14), but the amount of the payout has not yet been disclosed. This will take place in a new stage of the trial, which will determine who should be compensated and how much.
The lawsuit against British mining companies involves around 620,000 people, along with 2,000 companies and 31 local authorities, making it the largest collective environmental action in British judicial history.
The compensation claim has already been estimated at £36 billion (R250 billion), the highest amount in British judicial history and one of the highest in the world.
But the firm Pogust Goodhead, which represents the victims, said this estimate would be recalculated based on the number of municipalities still participating in the lawsuit (15 have abandoned the process) and the judge’s decision in the case.
In July 2024, Vale and BHP announced an agreement to split damages equally between the two companies in lawsuits brought in Europe. In addition to England, litigation is ongoing in the Netherlands against Vale and Samarco’s Dutch subsidiary.
Both parties can appeal the decision, Pogast-Goodhead said.
To this day, no one in Brazil has been convicted for this tragedy. The Federal Court also acquitted Sammarco, Vale, BHP and their former employees, but the Federal Ministry of Public Affairs (MPF) appealed the decision. The case is ongoing in the Sixth District U.S. District Court in Belo Horizonte.
In parallel, an agreement worth R$170 billion was signed at the end of 2024 between Vale, BHP, Samarco and the federal and state authorities of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo to repair the damage caused by the collapse of the Fundandan dam.
The Mariana disaster is considered Brazil’s worst environmental tragedy.
In addition to destroying the Bento Rodríguez area, the dam contained mud containing toxic mining waste that flowed down the Dosé River to Brazil’s coast, destroying the river’s fauna and the economic source of dozens of communities.
The dam failure killed 19 people and dumped more than 40 million cubic meters of mineral waste into the environment.
BBC News Brazil has contacted BHP for comment on this decision and is awaiting a position.
conflict of justice
At the time of the dam collapse, the mining company was headquartered in the UK, so lawyers for disaster victims were able to file a lawsuit against BHP in London. Furthermore, this multinational company is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
BHP and Vale argued that the legal action in the UK is “unnecessary as it overlaps with issues already dealt with in the activities of the then defunct Renova Foundation (now defunct) and in other legal proceedings in Brazil”.
The Renova Foundation was established by two mining companies to compensate families affected by the dam collapse.
At the end of 2024, Renova was dissolved after an agreement was reached with Vale, BHP, Samarco, and federal and state authorities to repair the damage caused by the Fundandan dam collapse.
The 170 billion reais agreement stipulates that in addition to compensation for those affected, 100 billion reais will be allocated to public institutions such as health, education and hygiene activities. Another part will be carried out by Samarco himself in the field of compensation, resettlement and environmental restoration.
Initially, a British court ruled in BHP’s favor and did not proceed with the proceedings. However, in July 2023, the Court of Appeal reversed the decision and accepted the case against the mining company.
The unanimous judgment, signed by the judges at the time, said: “Our conclusion is simply that the resources available in Brazil are clearly insufficient so that it would be pointless to proceed with the proceedings[in the UK].”
The decision sparked a legal battle between the two mining companies, with BHP appealing to the British courts to include Vale in compensation proceedings. Brazilian mining companies argued that they should not be included in the process because they fell outside the UK’s jurisdiction.
The two companies then reached an agreement to share the costs in the event of a loss.
Delays in proceedings in British courts also caused compensation amounts and the number of victims to increase over the years.
In 2020, the law firm represented 200,000 victims. Currently, that number is over 600,000.
Foreign judiciary in Brazilian cases
In August 2025, amid controversy over the application of the US Magnustisky Law in Brazil, Minister Flavio Dino of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) reiterated the prohibition on the application in Brazil of judicial decisions and foreign laws that have not been recognized by Brazilian courts.
Mr. Dino’s explanation of the regulation came amid a case in which the Brazilian Mining Association (Ibram) questioned in the STF the constitutionality of Brazilian local governments’ participation in proceedings against BHP abroad.
A British court ordered Ibram to withdraw from the case in Brazil. Therefore, Mr. Dino reiterated that the decision taken by the English court is invalid here.
But what Dino repeatedly said at the time, as in the BHP case, “has nothing to do with compensation,” explains Nadia de Araujo, a lawyer and professor of private international law at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC Rio).
Even if a British judge were to seek compulsory compensation from a British company, there is nothing that the Brazilian judicial system would need to uphold.
BHP is a multinational company headquartered in Australia, but also has offices in the United Kingdom.
The Brazilian courts would only need to take action if the UK judicial authorities decide that the fines must be collected in Brazil.
In this way, an application for recognition is made and the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) verifies whether the foreign judgment meets the formal legal requirements for domestic recognition. Therefore, no analysis of the merits (details of the judgment) will be conducted.
Regarding the participation of municipalities in this action, Mr. Dino explained that according to the Constitution, the federal federation represents Brazil abroad, not municipalities or states.
In theory, therefore, local governments would have no legitimacy to take action in other countries unless explicitly authorized by the federal government.
Additionally, 26 of the municipalities affected by the dam failure complied with Brazil’s compensation agreement approved by the STF.
According to Pogust Goodhead’s office, 15 municipalities that originally took part in the action withdrew, but a further 31 remained.
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