The list of suffering, which is available to the Munich I district court, is 1151 pages long and contains almost as many names. 1112 people from the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil are suing TÜV Süd for 436 million euros in damages. The plaintiffs are primarily relatives of the victims of a catastrophe that occurred in Minas Gerais almost three years ago to the day: On January 25, 2019, the dam of an iron ore mine near the small town of Brumadinho burst, causing a huge, toxic mudslide buried people, animals and houses. With 270 dead, it was one of the largest industrial accidents in the history of Brazil – and its traces reach as far as Germany.
TÜV Süd, a Munich-based but globally active monitoring and testing group with annual sales of 2.5 billion euros, is said to be partly responsible for the catastrophe. A Brazilian branch of TÜV Süd had certified the dam as safe in 2018 – wrongly, as the lawsuit claims. The examiners would therefore have to pay damages. TÜV Süd has been rejecting all allegations for years.
836 residents of the Minas Gerais region who lost close relatives in the disaster are demanding compensation. There are also survivors of the disaster who were injured at the time or whose property was lost or damaged in the mudslide. What they claim adds up to a total of 436 million euros. There are also other claims, above all from the municipality of Brumadinho, which have not yet been quantified.
The lawsuit is a massive extension of proceedings already pending at the Munich I District Court. So far, six relatives of a fatality and the municipality of Brumadinho have demanded compensation from TÜV Süd, a first court hearing took place in September 2021. The district court has already declared the extension of the lawsuit to be admissible.
TÜV Süd rejects all allegations
“We are confident that a verdict will be issued this year,” says Hamburg lawyer Jan Erik Spangenberg. He represents the 1112 plaintiffs against TÜV Süd. He could no longer “evade his responsibility for the deaths of 270 people and the massive destruction of the environment”. False declarations of stability by a Brazilian subsidiary would have made it possible for the dam and the mine to continue operating, says Spangenberg.
The TÜV Süd, for which it is about a lot of money, but also about the reputation, rejects all allegations. The group had already raised numerous objections to the lawsuit before and during the first court hearing last September. TÜV Süd explains that there is no connection between the report on the dam and the disaster. Even if the local inspectors had officially declared the dam unsafe, the mining company Vale, which operates there, and the authorities in Brazil would not have taken additional measures to prevent the dam from breaching. Also, the area below the dam would not have been evacuated, according to TÜV Süd. The people of Munich also point out that the community of Brumadinho and families of victims have already received money from Vale or have been awarded damages by the Brazilian judiciary.
At the trial in September 2021, the Munich I Regional Court asked whether it would be bad if the victims also got something from TÜV Süd. No, that wouldn’t be so bad, answered a lawyer from TÜV Süd – but for compensation you need damage, and that is already being compensated for by the operator of the dam. The plaintiffs, on the other hand, fear that the many victims in Brazil will have to fight for compensation for years to come. It’s better to have two debtors than just one.
In a brief submitted to the court in March 2020, TÜV Süd had already meticulously calculated what relatives of victims in Brazil would get from Vale. In addition, the mining group has announced investments in environmental protection and public infrastructure and has already started implementing the program. This also includes the construction of new roads to remove the mud. A year and a half later, when the Munich judiciary heard the case for the first time, the damage was far from being repaired. Avimar de Melo Barcelos, the mayor of Brumadinho, told the court that the Germans should come and see.