* Senior judges say appeal has "real prospect of success"
* Claimants' lawyers hail ruling as "monumental judgment"
* BHP says proceedings do not belong in UK
* Dam failure caused Brazil's worst environmental disaster
(Adds fresh quote from Brazil's Mariana Attorney General,
details)
By Kirstin Ridley
LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) - London's Court of Appeal made a
U-turn on Tuesday by agreeing to reopen a $7 billion lawsuit by
200,000 claimants against Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP
, reviving a case over a dam rupture behind
Brazil's worst environmental disaster.
Lawyers for one of the largest group claims in English legal
history have been pushing to resurrect the 5 billion pound ($6.9
billion) lawsuit against BHP since a lower court struck out the
lawsuit as an abuse of process last year.
In March, a Court of Appeal judge upheld that decision,
dashing the hopes of claimants seeking redress for the 2015
disaster.
But on Tuesday, three Appeal Court judges reversed course
and granted permission for appeal.
"Whilst we fully understand the considerations that led the
judge to his conclusion that the claim should be struck out, we
... believe that the appeal has a real prospect of success,"
they said.
The collapse of the Fundao dam, owned by the Samarco venture
between BHP and Brazilian iron ore mining giant Vale,
killed 19 and obliterated villages as a torrent of more than 40
million cubic metres of mining waste swept into the Doce river,
reaching the Atlantic Ocean over 650 km (400 miles) away.
Tom Goodhead, a PGMBM managing partner who is bringing the
claim on behalf of Brazilian individuals, businesses, churches,
organisations, municipalities and indigenous people, called it a
"monumental judgement".
Frederico de Assis Faria, Attorney General of Brazil's
hard-hit district of Mariana, said reopening the English case
"gives us an opportunity for real justice".
BHP, the world's largest mining company by market value, has
labelled the case pointless and wasteful, saying it duplicates
proceedings in Brazil and the work of the Renova Foundation, an
entity created by the company and its Brazilian partners to
manage reparations and repairs.
"BHP's position remains that the proceedings do not belong
in the UK," it said in a statement.
The case was revived after PGMBM in April applied for an
oral Court of Appeal hearing - reserved only for exceptional
cases - and argued the appeal judge had not properly grappled
with arguments about why the case should proceed.
Claimant lawyers have argued that most of their clients have
not brought proceedings in Brazil, that they are entitled to sue
BHP in England and that Brazilian litigation is so lengthy that
it cannot provide full redress in a realistic timeframe.
The lawsuit is the latest battle to establish whether
multinationals can be held liable for the conduct of overseas
subsidiaries on their home turf.
The appeal is expected to be heard next year and any ruling
is likely to be further appealed to the Supreme Court in London.
(Reporting by Kirstin Ridley; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and
Edmund Blair)
