Vale Reaches Settlement to Pay Damages to Workers Affected by Brumadinho Disaster

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Reuters) Brazilian mining company Vale SA said on Monday it would pay R$400 (US$106.52) million in collective moral damages caused by the deadly rupture of a tailings dam at Brumadinho in January that killed at least 240 people.

This amount is in addition to the amounts agreed to be paid to individual victims and their family members, under a settlement agreement with the Labor Public Prosecutor, ratified by the 15th Labor Court of Betim, Minas Gerais.

In a statement, Vale said the settlement also involves individual compensation for moral and material damages, including job stability and other benefits for a certain period of time. These individual payments, still to be calculated on a case by case basis, are expected to exceed, in total, R$1 billion.

In May, the company said it was taking $2.42 billion in writedowns for payments to victims’ families and estimated out-of-court settlements for various damages related to the dam collapse, including $247 million for a “framework agreement” with labor prosecutors.