In November 2015, the catastrophic collapse of a tailings dam at the Samarco iron ore mine in southeastern Brazil unleashed a devastating wave of toxic mining waste that surged through the Rio Doce river basin, claiming 19 lives, obliterating entire communities, and displacing thousands of residents, events that would come to define the nation’s worst environmental disaster.
Nearly eight years later, on November 14, 2025, the UK High Court delivered a landmark ruling in favor of affected communities, with Justice Finola O’Farrell declaring global mining behemoth BHP Group legally liable for the disaster under Brazilian law.
Although BHP did not directly own the dam, it was co-owned through a joint venture with Vale and Samarco, the court found that the company owed a duty of care to those impacted, reinforcing the principle that multinational corporations cannot evade responsibility for environmental and human harm simply by operating through subsidiaries.
The decision opens the door for tens of thousands of Brazilian claimants to pursue compensation in English courts and sets a significant precedent for corporate accountability in transnational environmental litigation. Read more...
The Mining Nexus: How Resource Extraction Powers the Global Economy #FrizeMedia https://buff.ly/3ibGvmp
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