The Brazilian federal court of appeal has approved a settlement agreed by Samarco and its owners, BHP Billiton and Vale, with state and federal governments over the dam disaster that killed at least 19 people last year.
The miners will pay up to 20 billion reais (£3.9 billion) over 15 years to cover environmental clean-up costs and to support families and communities affected by the accident.
BHP Billiton said that the agreement was the best way to respond to the tragedy, in which a tailings dam at Samarco’s Fundão mine collapsed, unleashing billions of gallons of iron-ore slurry into a valley near the mining town of Mariana, wiping out two villages and killing river life all the way to the coast. “While we cannot bring back the lives that were lost, we continue to focus on ensuring that the families and communities impacted by this tragedy are supported,” Dean Dalla Valle, BHP Billiton’s chief commercial officer, who is responsible for overseeing the miner’s response to the disaster, said.
He said that although considerable work remained, substantial progress had been made: 5,200 people were receiving financial support, more than 60 per cent of the buildings affected had been rebuilt and vegetation was being restored to the flooded areas.
As part of the agreement, an independent foundation will be created to “address the social, economic and environmental consequences of the dam failure”.
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Marilene Ramos, president of Ibama, the Brazilian federal environment agency, which was party to the settlement, said that the agreement was “a very important step because you remove any uncertainty about its validity”. Other signatories include the attorney-general of Brazil and the states of Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais.
The agreement could help Samarco, BHP Billiton and Vale with a separate £30 billion civil lawsuit filed this week by public prosecutors in Minas Gerais who did not sign the agreement. They alleged that the compensation was not enough and had used the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the United States as a reference point for the damages claim. BP has paid out more than $50 billion for that accident.
Shares in BHP rose by 13½p to 844¾p.