New lawsuit against Samarco, Vale, BHP filed by 21 municipalities
A group of 21 municipalities has filed a new public civil lawsuit against the mining companies Samarco, Vale, and BHP Billiton over the collapse of the Fundão Dam in Mariana, Minas Gerais state, in November 2015. The municipalities are seeking BRL 46 billion in compensation for what is regarded as the country's worst environmental disaster, which resulted in the deaths of 19 people, with three still missing.
The municipalities include Mariana and Ouro Preto in Minas Gerais, as well as others in Espírito Santo and Bahia states affected by the dam collapse. These municipalities did not join the renegotiation agreement ratified by the Supreme Court in November 2024.
The renegotiation agreement gave the municipalities 120 days to decide whether to join, with the deadline starting from the date of ratification by the Supreme Court on November 6, 2024. Therefore, the decision must be made by March 6.
Several municipalities have expressed a preference for continuing with the process in the English courts.
Arguments
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argue that, ten years after the tragedy, there has been no meaningful reparation.
One excerpt from the lawsuit states, "It is not surprising that the amounts offered by the companies are entirely insufficient and fail to account for several critical factors in determining the final amount owed."
"The municipalities remain completely unprotected, legally speaking, regarding the need for compensation for the damage they have endured over the years. Currently, there is no indication or legal certainty about the potential compensation for the harm suffered by these federal entities," the text reads.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs estimate that Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo lost approximately BRL 250 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 2015 and 2018, with future losses projected to range from BRL 455 billion to BRL 547 billion by 2034. Additionally, public revenue losses in the two states are expected to reach BRL 81.6 billion between 2019 and 2034.
The plaintiffs argue that "although the true future extent of the damage to the economy of the affected municipalities cannot be fully known, it is widely acknowledged that the amounts allocated to them in the renegotiation do not account for these losses."
For comparison, municipal authorities in Mariana estimated in 2015 that the losses in infrastructure, private housing, and public facilities were four times greater than the royalties paid by Samarco that year.
Dam collapse
The dam that collapsed on November 5, 2015, was located in the rural area of Mariana, within a mining complex owned by Samarco, a joint venture between Anglo-Australian BHP Billiton and Brazilian Vale. At the time, approximately 39 million cubic meters of tailings flowed through the Doce River Basin, eventually reaching its mouth in Espírito Santo.
The disaster resulted in 19 deaths, completely destroyed two districts—Bento Rodrigues and Paracatu—and had a significant impact on the populations of dozens of municipalities in Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo.
