In this The Last Update, we revisit a story that never quite ended: the Fundão Dam collapse in Brazil. A decade later, executives have moved on, share prices have recovered – but the mud and consequences still linger. On 5 November 2015, an earthworks tailings dam, built in 2008, used in iron mining operations effectively liquefied, unleashing a torrent of mining waste that flowed more than 400 miles (644 km) downriver and caused enduring contamination. Entire communities lost drinking water overnight. Fishermen along the watercourse saw their livelihoods disappear beneath iron-rich sludge. At the time, the poisoning of the vast Doce River, and ultimately the Atlantic, was considered the country’s “worst ever environmental disaster”(perhaps until the 2019 Brumadinho Dam disaster that killed 270 people); the destruction caused 19 deaths, killed tens of thousands of animals, led to mass evacuations, and caused billions in damages.
The legal process has been continental, convoluted, and circuitous. The three mining companies involved – BHP Group, Vale, and Samarco (the dam owner and a subsidiary of the two other companies), and one consultancy, VogBR – faced numerous serious offenses. In 2016, the Brazilian Federal Prosecution Office (MPF) initially sought heavy sentences for 21 executives – including serious environmental damage and qualified homicide (homicídio qualificado), akin to manslaughter. These charges were later reduced and dropped by the courts in 2019 – nobody went to prison and top executives have continued to reap hundreds of millions in pay. The courts ultimately attributed the deaths and destruction to the flooding itself, and while the companies remained responsible in civil law, no individual executive was held criminally liable. Once the criminal prosecutions had unraveled, the center of gravity shifted from punishment to compensation. The question was no longer who would go to prison, but who would pay.
This legal shift left the compensation trials to dominate, and while the ecological and material damage may yet be fully repaired or compensated, economic justice is on the horizon. In 2024, Vale and BHP agreed to a $31.7 billion (170 billion reais) restitution settlement in Brazil – finally providing some funding for environmental repair and compensation for affected residents and small businesses (at R$30,000/~$5,700 per person or enterprise).
The final years of legal struggle have largely focused on BHP, the parent group behind Samarco. Although BHP is an Australian company, it maintains London offices, thus the legal battle was taken up in the UK. The BHP legal team tried to quash the number of claimants in the opt-out (automatically includes claimants) class action suit. They argued that many of the more than 600,000 claimants had already received compensation under the Brazilian settlement. This argument was dismissed. Fortunately for the victims, on 26 January 2026, the English High Court refused BHP its appeal, which had lost its case and was found strictly liable for pollution under Brazilian environmental law on 14 November 2025. In doing so, the High Court did something very unusual: it applied Brazilian environmental law to an Anglo-Australian multinational, holding a parent company accountable for the acts of its subsidiary abroad. With permission to appeal refused in the UK, and the Brazilian criminal route long closed, the central fight over responsibility is effectively complete.
Over tumultuous years, mining giant BHP has fought liability while the destruction faded from the headlines. Finally, this chapter can rest, and although there are still legal issues in the Netherlands and the compensation trial may yet take another year or two to process – billions in compensation are now assured. BHP, whose defense hinged on company ownership rather than liability, has hit a wall. The company is now officially, definitively liable for damages in one of the largest class action cases in history, paving the way for a potential payout of £36 billion (R$255 bln / $49 bln).
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