Investors in the US have filed a collective lawsuit against Vale relating to Samarco’s the deadly iron ore waste dam burst in November.
Corporate litigation firm Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman has initiated a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York earlier this week, accusing the Brazilian iron ore producer of making false statements and failing to disclose material adverse facts about the Samarco iron ore project.
Vale’s CEO, Murilo Ferreira, and Luciano Siani, the company’s executive director of finance and investor relations, were also accused in the lawsuit. Despite also being the owner of Samarco, holding a 50 percent stake in the company, BHP Billiton wasn’t targeted in the legal action.
The investors suing Vale expect to recover their losses in Vale’s securities or American depository receipts listed on the New York stock exchange, since Samarco’s tragedy in the city of Mariana, in the state of Minas Gerais.
The filing labeled Vale's programs and procedures to mitigate environmental, health and safety in-cidents as “inadequate.”
According to the law firm, Vale also failed to disclose that the "accident at Samarco of the bursting of the Fundao Dam resulted in the spillage of toxic waste”.