About the case
Vale S.A. (“Vale” or the “Company”) is the world’s largest iron ore mining company. Its stock price dropped significantly between January 25-28, 2019, after the collapse of one of its dams near the town of Brumadinho in southeastern Brazil. This was the second such disaster in less than four years for Vale, the other occurring in 2015 at the Company’s Mariana dam complex. This collapse killed about 300 people (most of whom were Vale employees and contractors), buried a nearby town, and caused environmental damages that will take years to remediate.
Vale’s stock fell significantly in the trading days immediately following the Brumadinho dam collapse. From January 25, 2019, when news articles first reported the Brumadinho dam disaster, to January 28, 2019, when further details emerged regarding the human and environmental catastrophe that Vale caused, Vale’s stock price fell from $14.86 to $11.20 per share, wiping out a total of $19.3 billion in market cap (or roughly $14.7 billion in common share float, and $4.6 billion in the ADR float).
Having had clear and obvious notice of the problems with its mining dams since the 2015 Mariana dam collapse, and having assured its investors since that time that Vale’s operational safety was paramount and its dams secure, this is a very compelling securities fraud case.
Our Strategy
With clear and obvious knowledge of the existence of its upstream chemical waste dams and the risks associated therewith since 2003 and later even more-so after the Mariana dam collapse in 2015, Vale decided to mislead and defraud investors through false assurances and statements concerning operational safety. The material misstatements and omissions made by Vale violated the Brazilian Civil Code and Brazilian Corporation Law. As a result of the publicly available information, and ongoing government investigations, there is strong evidence against Vale to hold the company liable for shareholder losses that were a direct result of Vale’s material misstatements and omissions concerning it’s the Company’s operations and the operational safety of the Brumadinho dam prior to its collapse. The Statute of Limitations to file these claims under the applicable Brazilian law is three years and is set to expire on January 25, 2022.
As a publicly traded company on Brazil’s Sao Paulo stock exchange, Vale’s bylaws mandate that any shareholder disputes with the company must be arbitrated in front of the B3’s affiliated Market Arbitration Chamber of the B3 stock exchange in São Paulo, Brazil (“MAC”), an institution of the B3 – Brasil Bolsa Balcão S.A., formerly BM&FBOVESPA in Brazil. DRRT has substantial experience in Brazilian arbitration. Accordingly, DRRT has retained a highly respected Brazilian law firm that has significant experience in handing arbitrations on behalf of institutional investors at the MAC, as well as a highly acclaimed Brazilian economist to help support our claims against Vale.
On October 20, 2020, we filed our first Request for Arbitration against Vale S.A. to initiate arbitration proceedings at the MAC. This Request for Arbitration was made on behalf of a group of 42 institutional investors with total damage claims over BRL 1.768 billion (roughly USD 316 million). We are currently preparing to file a second wave of claims.
Who is eligible to participate
Institutional investors can join a fully-funded and insured arbitration of similarly situated, institutional investors in order to jointly recover any losses suffered from investments of Vale S.A. Investors interested in participating in this recovery effort are requested to send their relevant transaction data for the ISINs BRVALEACNOR0 and BRVALEACNPA3 during the Relevant Period from November 16, 2015 – July 3, 2019, for a risk-free review of their potential losses.
Please send us your data using the data template here attached and by emailing it to valeinvestorclaims@drrt.com.