- BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP) -5.6% and Vale (NYSE:VALE) -5.3% premarket after Brazilian prosecutors reveal their $43B claim for damages related to the November tailings dam burst, considered the country ’s worst ever environmental disaster.
- The damages claim has been based on the clean-up costs of BP’s Deepwater Horizon accident in the U.S., as “preliminary studies show the human, economic and socio-environmental impacts of the collapse of the dam are, at least, equivalent to those verified in the Gulf of Mexico," the prosecutors say.
- BHP says it had not yet received any formal notice of the legal claim but “remains committed to helping Samarco to rebuild the community and restore the environment affected by the failure of the dam."
- Brazilian prosecutors have a reputation for demanding very high compensation payments, although settlements sometimes are reached for a much lower cost, as happened with Chevron in 2011 over an oil spill off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.