A scandal-hit law firm has sued victims of a Brazilian dam disaster in a fight over one of the biggest legal claims in British history.

London-based Pogust Goodhead is seeking to block victims of the Mariana dam disaster from switching law firms in a £36bn case against two of the world’s biggest mining companies.

Vale and BHP are being sued over the catastrophic 2015 collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Brazil, which released 43.7 million cubic metres of toxic mudflow from the Samarco mine in one of the biggest ever environmental disasters.

Pogust Goodhead, a law firm started by American Harris Pogust and British barrister Thomas Goodhead, filed a claim on behalf of almost 700,000 Brazilian victims in 2018 seeking £36bn in damages. The High Court ruled the mining firms were liable for damages in November last year.

However, the case has been thrown into disarray after Mr Goodhead was ousted from his own firm over allegations he spent legal funds on yacht parties and private jets.

Mr Goodhead, who has been reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for professional misconduct, has denied wrongdoing.
Pogust Goodhead had been seeking to progress the Brazilian dam claim without its co-founder.

However, the victims, led by indigenous leader Marcelo Batista Santana Krenak, have attempted to switch their representation.

Mr Krenak hired a firm called Bailey Glasser International to represent the Brazilian dam disaster victims.

Pogust Goodhead claims he lacks the authority to switch legal teams. The law firm also claims that Bailey Glasser International lacks the proper insurance to take over the claim.

She said: “This isn’t a fight about whether individual clients can change lawyers - of course they can; it is about whether a committee could move hundreds of thousands of people to another firm in one stroke, and whether clients are now being asked to make potentially irreversible decisions on the basis that the transfer is ‘seamless’, without being given a complete picture of what it could mean for the funding, insurance and infrastructure supporting their April 2027 trial.”

Hundreds of millions of pounds in fees are potentially at stake. BHP and Vale were ordered to cover £80m in legal costs for the Mariana Dam victims in the first stage of the trial. The total fees could be substantially higher when the second stage of the trial is completed.

Bailey Glasser International claimed earlier this month that it had taken over the Mariana Dam case on behalf of more than 400,000 claimants involved in the case.

Humphries Kerstetter, which is representing the victims’ committee, said: “The committee acted within those contractual powers, repeatedly raised serious concerns about the conduct of the litigation, including through a formal notice, and sought independent legal advice before concluding that a change of representation had become unavoidable.

“The committee remains fully confident in the decision it took to protect the interests of the people it represents.”
Bailey Glasser International is the British arm of US law firm Bailey & Glasser and operates in the UK through a commercial agreement with a high street law firm in Watford, Edward McCourt & Company.

Bailey Glasser International declined to comment.