Judge refuses BHP permission to appeal landmark case
The High Court has refused mining giant BHP permission to appeal a ruling that found it liable for a dam disaster under both environmental law and the Brazilian civil code.
The Melbourne-HQ’d group was sued in London over a deadly dam disaster in Brazil in 2015.
Law firm Pogust Goodhead launched a group lawsuit in England against the dam owners on behalf of over 700,000 people affected by the 2018 disaster.
The case, which was the largest the High Court has had to handle, has been in and out of court over the last several years due to jurisdiction issues, but after a twist in 2022 when the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, the main trial kicked off last year.
In November, Mrs Justice O’Farrell handed down her 222-page judgment from the liability trial, concluding that BHP is liable to the claimants on two grounds under Brazilian law.
Following the surprising ruling, BHP’s president of minerals Americas, Brandon Craig, said BHP would appeal the court’s decision.
However, in a ruling on Monday, the same judge refused the group’s application for permission to appeal after concluding it had no real prospect of success. “There is no other compelling reason for the appeal to be heard,” she added.
Jonathan Wheeler, partner at Pogust Goodhead, said, “Today’s decision reinforces the strength and robustness of the High Court’s findings and brings hundreds of thousands of claimants a step closer to redress for the immense harm they have suffered.”
BHP going directly to the CoA
BHP is now taking its appeal directly to the Court of Appeal. The group has 28 days from the date of the decision to file its application, which it said it will do in the “coming weeks”.
A spokesperson for the mining group said, “BHP will continue to robustly defend the remaining phases of this action in parallel.”
“Approximately 240,000 claimants in the UK group action have signed full releases and have already been paid compensation in Brazil. We believe this and other factors should result in a reduction of the claimants in the UK group action by about half,” they added.
This comes as Pogust Goodhead faces “material uncertainty” after publishing overdue accounts earlier this month, which reveal an annual loss of £95m.