Global mining giant BHP Group has lost an appeal in a London court seeking to block a more than 5 billion pound (R101bn) lawsuit by 200 000 Brazilians over a 2015 dam failure that triggered Brazil's worst environmental disaster.
In what claimant lawyers described as a "monumental judgment", the Court of Appeal on Friday overturned previous judgments and ruled that the group lawsuit – one of the largest in English legal history – could proceed in English courts.
"The days of huge corporations doing what they want in countries on the other side of the world and getting away with it are over," said Tom Goodhead, the managing partner of law firm PGMBM, which represents Brazilian individuals, businesses, churches, municipalities and indigenous people.
BHP, the world's largest mining company by market value, said it would consider a Supreme Court appeal.
The collapse of the Fundao tailings dam, owned by the Samarco venture between BHP and Brazilian iron ore mining giant Vale, killed 19 as more than 40 million cubic metres of mud and mining waste swept into the Doce river, obliterating villages and reaching the Atlantic Ocean more than 650 km away.
The lawsuit is the latest to establish whether multinational companies can be held liable on their home turf for the conduct of overseas subsidiaries, emulating cases brought in London against miner Vedanta and oil giant Shell over alleged pollution and oil spills in Africa.