BHP vows to fight class action
BHP yesterday vowed to fight an Australian class action alleging the mining giant breached its disclosure obligations and engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct over the deadly Samarco dam failure in Brazil.
Nineteen people were killed and a tsunami of toxic waste was unleashed when an iron ore tailings dam burst at the mine in the Minas Gerais region in 2015 in one of the country’s worst environ- mental disasters. BHP and Vale, co-owners of Samarco, last month reached an agreement with Brazilian public authorities to settle a $20 billion real (US$5.3 billion) civil suit over the tragedy.
The companies also established a framework to progress a second $155 billion real claim brought by Brazilian federal prosecutors in the next two years.
The disaster saw BHP’s shares plunge and some 3000 investors have now signed up to participate in a class action, brought by shareholder Vince Impiombato, the law firm representing him Phi Finney McDonald said.
“BHP intends to defend the claim,” the AngloAustralian miner said in a brief statement about the class action, which was filed in the Federal Court of Australia in Victoria late May.
BHP shares were trading 1.03 per cent lower to Aus $32.57 in Sydney yesterday. The class action’s statement of claim alleges there had been problems with the dam in the years before 2015, and there was “significant risk of failure”.
It also alleged BHP was or ought to have been aware of the risks.
BHP said last week that the company would record a US$650 million charge for the year to June 30 over the dam collapse.