State prosecutors scoff at deal and file $44bn claim of their own RIO DE JANEIRO AND BRUSSELS — Any relief felt by the mining companies BHP Billiton and Vale over what looked like a final $5.7bn settlement for the cost of last year’s dam burst at their Brazilian iron ore mine must have evaporated when state prosecutors scoffed at the deal and filed last Tuesday a $44bn claim of their own.What is far from clear, however, is whether that number, based on little more than the analogy of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in the US that will have cost BP about $40bn in claims and fines, will bear scrutiny.The prosecutors did not break down their claim into components, saying that, "unless you want to assume that each millimetre of Brazil’s environment is worth less than that in the US, it is unacceptable that the valuation of damage caused by the defendant companies be less, prima facie, than $43.8bn."A member of the prosecuting team, Jorge Munhós de Souza, said ...
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