London, 6 May 2026 – The Court of Appeal of England and Wales today refused BHP’s application for permission to appeal the High Court’s landmark liability judgment in the Mariana disaster litigation.
The High Court found BHP responsible for the 2015 collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil, concluding that BHP is liable for the disaster under both the Brazilian Civil and Environmental law.
The Court of Appeal heard BHP’s application for permission to appeal the decision on 12 March after BHP was refused permission to appeal by the High Court in January. BHP asked the court for permission to contest the findings that it was a polluter, and that it had knowledge of the risks associated with the dam before the collapse. The mining company also challenged the finding that all claimants brought their claims in time.
The Court of Appeal’s refusal marks a further victory for the hundreds of thousands of Brazilian victims who have spent over ten years pursuing justice, and a major setback for BHP. The High Court’s liability judgment remains in force, and BHP has exhausted the ordinary routes by which it could seek to overturn it.
In today’s ruling, the court concluded that BHP’s proposed grounds of appeal have no real prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason for the appeal to be heard. The decision means that the parties will proceed to the trial of Stage 2 of the proceedings, which will determine issues of causation, loss and damages. The trial evidence is to be heard from April 2027 to December 2027, with closing submissions listed for March 2028.
Lord Justice Fraser wrote in the decision: “I do not accept that any of the grounds relating to BHP’s liability for the dam collapse are reasonably arguable. I do not consider that there is any foundation for the different complaints that the trial judge failed to engage with BHP’s case.”
Jonathan Wheeler, lead partner for the Mariana litigation at Pogust Goodhead, said: “The Court of Appeal has now joined the High Court in finding that BHP’s grounds of appeal have no real prospect of success – an emphatic and unambiguous outcome. BHP remains liable for the worst environmental disaster in Brazil’s history, and it will not be given another bite at the cherry.”
“Our clients have waited more than a decade for justice while BHP pursued every procedural avenue to avoid accountability; those avenues are now closed. We are focused on securing the compensation that hundreds of thousands of Brazilians have been owed for far too long.”
NOTES TO THE EDITOR:
- Under English procedural law, a refusal of permission to appeal by the Court of Appeal ordinarily brings the appeal process to an end. Any further application would have to be made under CPR r.52.30, an exceptional jurisdiction allowing the same court to reopen a final decision – only where it is necessary to avoid real injustice, the circumstances are exceptional, and there is no alternative effective remedy. It is a rarely successful procedural mechanism and sets a very high threshold.
- The liability trial took place between October 2024 and March 2025. The landmark judgment was handed down in November 2025, confirming that BHP was liable for the worst environmental disaster in the history of Brazil.
- The Stage 1 judgment established that BHP bears responsibility for the disaster under both strict liability and fault-based principles, rejecting key defences advanced by the mining company.
- The High Court found BHP liable for environmental harm and that the mining company acted with such negligence, imprudence, and/or lack of skill that caused the collapse, which was foreseeable and preventable.
- These findings now form the foundation for the next stages of the litigation, which address issues of causation, loss, and compensation for affected individuals, indigenous and quilombola communities, businesses, and municipalities.
- The Mariana dam collapse on 5 November 2015 released around 40 million cubic metres of toxic waste and sludge into the Doce River, killing 19 people, as well as the foetus of one of the survivors. The collapse also had catastrophic and lasting effects on neighbouring communities and dozens of municipalities along the river all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
