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Investors clash with lawyers over dam disaster class action
The Observer
|August 10, 2025
Events at law firm seeking compensation for Brazil claimants highlight secret backers and question success of October's case.
The UK law firm behind a landmark £36bn class action suit against the Australian mining giant BHP abruptly dismissed its CEO on Thursday amid tensions with the firm's mysterious financial backers.
These funders have been ordered to reveal their identities by the high court, The Observer can reveal.
Last week, Pogust Goodhead, which represents 620,000 claimants seeking compensation from BHP after the Fundão dam collapsed in Brazil, removed and put on leave its CEO, Thomas Goodhead, after he clashed with its funder Gramercy, a US fund manager whose participation was already public.
Hitherto undisclosed investors include the US funds Prisma Capital, Jive Capital and SPS Vinci, while another US entity, Cliffwater, lent $14m to Gramercy for the express purpose of funding Pogust Goodhead. Other backers remain undisclosed.
This story is from the August 10, 2025 edition of The Observer.
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