LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - A London court on Friday
rejected BHP Group's request to delay until mid-2025 a
potential 36 billion pound ($44 billion) lawsuit over Brazil's
worst environmental disaster, instead granting a five-month
deferral.
The world's biggest miner by market value is being sued by
720,000 Brazilians over the 2015 collapse of the Fundao dam
owned by the Samarco joint venture BHP holds with Brazilian iron
ore producer Vale .
When the dam collapsed, 19 people were killed as mud and
toxic mining waste swept into the Doce river, obliterating
villages, contaminating water supplies and reaching the Atlantic
Ocean more than 650 km (400 miles) away.
BHP said in an email on Friday "it denies the claims brought
in the UK in their entirety and will continue to defend the
case".
The company was initially being sued by around 200,000
people but in March the number of claimants leapt by 500,000.
BHP's lawyers had said the April 2024 trial should be
delayed until at least June 2025 to give the company more time
to prepare and allow Vale to participate.
But Judge Finola O'Farrell on Friday set a trial start date
of Oct. 7, 2024 and said "this will give the parties a more
relaxed, achievable timetable and will provide time for Vale and
others to participate if necessary."
BHP applied in December to have Vale join the case.
Vale has challenged the London High Court's jurisdiction to
determine the claim, and that challenge will be heard in July.
Reparation and compensation programmes implemented by the
Renova Foundation, a redress scheme established in 2016 by
Samarco and its shareholders, in connection with the disaster
had funded $6 billion in financial aid as of the end of 2022,
BHP said.
The lawsuit, one of the largest in English legal history,
first began in 2018 and was thrown out of court two years later,
before the Court of Appeal ruled in July that it could proceed.
"Over seven years on from the disaster, today's Judgment
means our clients will finally have their day in court and they
are now one step closer to the justice they deserve," Tom
Goodhead of law firm Pogust Goodhead, which represents the
claimants, said in a statement.
BHP has also applied to the Supreme Court to end the case
without trial following the Court of Appeal's decision last
year.
(Reporting by Clara Denina; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
