The District Court of Munich, Germany, scheduled three hearings in the case filed by 1,400 victims of the Vale dam collapse in Brumadinho (MG). The objective of the action is to hold the company TÜV SÜD AG, whose headquarters are in the city, responsible. They were scheduled for the period from May 26th to 28th.
On the initiative of inhabitants of the municipalities of Brumadinho and Mário Campos, the The action calls for the company’s civil liability and the payment of compensation estimated at R$3.2 billion.
The Pogust Goodhead office represents the victims. The law firm also worked to defend the rights of victims of Fundão dam rupturefrom Samarco, in Mariana (MG), in 2015, for compensation from the shareholder, the Anglo-Australian mining company BHP.
TÜV SÜD AG is the company called to answer for controlling Tüv Süd Bureau de Projetos e Consultoria LTDA, its subsidiary in Brazil hired to assess whether the structure was compromised and represented any risk.
Wanted by Brazil Agency, TÜV SÜD AG maintained that it “has no legal responsibility for the dam collapse” and that an inspection carried out by authorities in November 2018, three months before the socio-environmental crime, confirmed the solidity of the structure, attested in a report.
“The issuance of the stability declarations by the TÜV SÜD Bureau was legitimate and in compliance with applicable legislation and technical standards. The dam was stable at the time of the stability declarations”, argued the holding German in note.
The victims allege that the Mina Córrego do Feijão dam was in poor condition, falling well below international standards. In total, 272 people died in the tragedy.
>> Click here and check out the coverage from the Brazil Agency about the criminal tragedy of Brumadinho
Crime
For the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), the case should be remembered as a crime, and not as an inevitable tragedy or disaster. For MAB, there was deliberate negligence on the part of the mining company Vale and the German certifier.
In Brazil, only now, seven years after the rupture, the 2nd Federal Criminal Court of the Judiciary Subsection of Belo Horizonte will begin, on February 23, the instruction hearings – the first phase of the process that will define whether the accused will go to the popular jury. Testimonies from victims, witnesses and defendants should continue until May 2027.
Currently, 15 individuals are criminally responsible for the crime. Eleven are former directors, managers and engineers at Vale and four are employees of TÜV SÜD.
In both processes, the defendants can be punished for qualified intentional homicide, with possible intent, that is, when the risk of death is assumed.
In the complaint sent to the Munich Prosecutor’s Office, the employees of the holding Germany can also be convicted of the crimes of negligence causing flooding and corruption.
Slowness
To take the case to the European Court, the victims had the support of the German organizations Misereor and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).
As recorded by the Observatory of Criminal Actions on the Tragedy of Brumadinho, the action was also possible thanks to the joint mobilization with the Cordilheira Institute and the Association of Families of Victims and Affected by the Breakdown of the Córrego do Feijão Mine Dam (Avabrum) and the contribution arising from Brazil-Germany cooperation, including, to guarantee the investigation of the facts.
According to Avabrum, since 2019, successive legal difficulties have been imposed on the victims’ families and victims who survived the tragedy.
“There was a dispute over the jurisdiction for the trial, which was only resolved in December 2022, when the Federal Supreme Court decided that the action should be processed in the Federal Court”, he points out.
“The process, originally physical, with 84 volumes, required full digitization. Defendants residing abroad needed to be summoned through letters rogatory. To this is added habeas corpus and resources that suspended deadlines at different times, in addition to the complexity of a complaint with 477 pages and thousands of technical documents”, adds the website Brumadinho’s legacy.
The project emerged from three axes: protection of life, daily struggle for Justice and reframing the crime tragedy through culture and art.
Title changed at 8:27 pm for clarification.
