Mariana: Corporate Accountability Cannot End at the Courthouse, by Fransiscus Nanga Roka

The collapse of the Fundão dam took minutes. A little over a decade later, justice. The disparity highlights a cruel injustice: Individuals bear the disaster immediately; corporations spend more and more of an increasing number of years battling over legal responsibility.

A tailings dam near Mariana in south eastern Brazil collapsed on 5 November 2015, releasing more than 40 million cubic metres of mining waste. Nineteen people died. Villages were buried and the sludge gushed down the Doce River basin to the sea. The dam: operated by Samarco, a joint venture between Vale and BHP’s Brazilian subsidiary.

The disaster resulted in what lawyers for the claimants refer to as a ‘record’ English class action claim, potentially worth 36bn (£24bn), although only £19.2bn of the claim is being pursued at present. That value is an assertion, not an award. Confusing the two turns a case for historic accountability into a sensational financial headline.

No embellishment needed, still a big news. The High Court found BHP liable; on the alternative basis in tort but also under Brazilian environmental law, in the November 2025 phase 2 judgment. The liability decision was here challenged by an application for permission to appeal, but this followed its course in May 2026, at which point the Court of Appeal refused permission. On matters awaiting further hearings, eg on compensation, it ruled that such hearings ‘should occur’ for 2027–28. It was not a criminal finding that senior officials set the catastrophe in motion intentionally to make money — this was civic duty.

This matters because parent firms cannot be insulated from liability just by virtue of having a corporate structure. However, the moral is inevitably a subtle one: it was Brazilian law that an England court purported to impose on these defendants and this situation. It did not subject every multinational globally to liability for any alleged wrongdoing by one of its subsidiaries.

But for those affected, a win on doctrine does not restore a livelihood, rebuild a community or treat water.

The extensive nature of the response is illustrated by Brazil’s separate R$170 billion compensation and rehabilitation agreement with BHP, Vale and Samarco. Mariana and 18 other municipalities joined that scheme in August of 2026. The key question is not how good the headline looks, but how commitments translate into measurable recovery.

The mechanics of litigation also need to be examined. This means that lawyers and funders can turn previously unattainable claims into commercially viable ones. However, its commercial interests must always be secondary to the choice informed by the client and fair remuneration. Survivors must not become assets over which rival businesses tussle about who is entitled to cash from fees.

Five reforms should follow.

Independent and automated public audits of payouts, open tender applications, rehabilitation milestones and environmental outcomes. At aggregate level (neighbourhood level) release result while protecting privacy

Transparency, align the Brazilian compensation process with the English one in the second line. Your model should therefore not (as all those examples do) make the assumption that collective recovery expense will always compensate any individual loss. Get the victims approval before discussing releases and fee.

The other thing is for the true independence to be part of tailings hearings, risk disclosures that automatically ignore people, public such early warning systems, and the drills for evacuation. Engineering issues warrant recording of action and not just an internal record.

Fourth, impose limits on financial protection prior to closure operations and disaster damage. Corporations cannot be restructured leaving communities with only an empty vessel for compensation.

Fifth, in collaboration with affected communities, ensure that they are able to meaningfully affect restoration priorities; wholly independent technical support; and grievance mechanisms capable of providing access to remedy, in practice as well as theory. Recovery that does not have built in survivors risks repeating the power dynamics found pre-disaster.

Mariana’s deepest indictment concerns time. The burden of harm caused by corporates is transferred in as little time and/or at all onto the householders least able to bear it, through compensation.

Courts have established responsibility. Now, attorneys general and companies, as well as their spokespeople, are the ones to offer up visible reparations.

Liability verdict is a tipping point. Justice comes when the river, river-based livelihoods and those who survive them are not mere footnotes to a corporate balance sheet.

Fransiscus Nanga Roka

Faculty of Law University 17 August 1945 Surabaya and Managing Partner Law Firm Victorious Indonesia