Unprecedented criminal conviction in the Mariana disaster case breaks mining industry's cycle of impunity

On 3 September 2026, the second Panel of the Federal Regional Court (TRF-6) in Belo Horizonte unanimously convicted mining company Samarco Mineração S/A and three of its former managers - engineers Germano Silva Lopes, Daviély Rodrigues Silva and Wagner Milagres Alves - over the November 2015 collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Mariana, Minas Gerais. The disaster killed 19 people (families count 20, as one of the victims was pregnant), destroyed the village of Bento Rodrigues, and sent a wave of toxic mining waste down the entire Rio Doce basin, with effects still felt today.

Both ENDS and Instituto Cordilheira

Both ENDS has supported Instituto Cordilheira since 2021, as the organisation's first funder. "If we're still here working today, it's because Both Ends trusted us and continue to trust us," said Carolina de Moura of Instituto Cordilheira. Since then, the organisation has become a key legal voice for communities affected by mining disasters in Brazil, also acting as assistant prosecutor in the ongoing criminal case over the 2019 Brumadinho dam collapse.

Alongside this direct support, Both ENDS has spent years amplifying the fight for justice for communities affected by Vale's disasters in Mariana and Brumadinho on the international stage. Both ENDS has also continued to press Dutch investors in Vale to reckon with the risks the company's conduct poses to people and the environment.

The verdict

Samarco - a joint venture between mining giants Vale and BHP Billiton - was barred from contracting with public authorities for 10 years and ordered to pay roughly R$7.2 million (about EUR 1.2 million) in fines. The two lead engineers were sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison; the third manager, found to have played a smaller role, received seven years, three months and 15 days. Ten other defendants, including Vale, BHP Billiton and engineering firm VogBR, remain acquitted - a decision the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office says it will now study closely, with an eye to appeal.

The ruling overturns a November 2024 first-instance decision that had acquitted all defendants. Instituto Cordilheira, acting alongside the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office as assistant prosecutor for the victims, had appealed that acquittal, a legal fight it has pursued since it was founded.

"We have broken the cycle of impunity," said lawyer Danilo Chammas of Human Rights Litigation Team at Instituto Cordilheira. "By recognising that Samarco and three of its managers knew the risk, ignored warnings and chose to look away, the judiciary has finally confirmed that this was not an accident. Even though the company's top directors were spared, we hope this ruling drives real change and pushes for an urgent review of the contracts this now-convicted company still holds with public authorities."

Voices from the communities

More than 100 people affected by the disaster travelled to Belo Horizonte to follow the hearing, and gathered outside the courthouse afterwards to mark what they described as a partial but hard-won victory - among them residents of Bento Rodrigues, families of victims, and members of the Quilombola community of Gesteira.

Mônica dos Santos, who lost her home in the disaster, was emotional outside the court: "Today is a day of joy, a day to look at our country's justice system and start believing in it again. We know this is only a first step, and that they will appeal but we're prepared. If we have to go to Brasília, or to another country, wherever this fight for justice takes us, we will go." She added: "If what happened here today had happened back in 2015, when the dam collapsed, I'm certain Brumadinho would never have broken and 272 lives could have been spared," referring to the 2019 Vale dam disaster in Brumadinho.