President Lula said: “I hope the mining companies have learned their lesson; it would have cost them less to prevent the disaster.”
The dam was owned by Samarco, a joint venture between Vale and BHP.
After the disaster, the companies created a fund to pay compensation to people, which has already carried out billions of dollars in repairs. This involved building a new city to replace one of the cities that had been destroyed.
However, many people in the community still claimed they had not received justice or enough to rebuild their lives after nine years.
In addition to those lawsuits in Brazil, more than 620,000 people sued BHP in the UK, where BHP was headquartered at the time, in proceedings that began earlier this week.
They are seeking about $47 billion in damages in the civil suit. The first stage will determine whether BHP – as the parent company – was liable. About 70,000 claimants are also taking Vale to court in the Netherlands.
Both companies deny liability and say the foreign lawsuit is “unnecessary” and duplicates the lawsuit in Brazil.
