The dispute over which firm should represent Brazilian Mariana Dam disaster victims in the UK High Court has taken a new twist with the news that former Pogust Goodhead (PG) chief executive Thomas Goodhead is joining the firm attempting to take over the case from PG.
Goodhead is linking up with several former PG partners at Bailey Glasser International (BGI), which has been appointed to run the case by a client committee despite PG’s strong insistence that it remains the solicitor of record and that a change of advisers risked “placing claimants’ costs protection in jeopardy and exposing them to significant financial liabilities”.
Goodhead was ousted from PG last year when PG subsequently appointed new management to the claim and later announced new funding from litigation funder Gramercy alongside the instruction of Quinn Emanuel as co-counsel for the next stages of the litigation, which will deal with damages.
In a statement, BGI said Goodhead would join former PG partners Jeremy Evans, Faranak Ghajavand and Guy Robson on the case at the firm. Evans and the other partners were key members of PG’s Mariana team, which Goodhead assembled in 2018.
BGI added that it had also retained barristers including Alain Choo Choy KC and Andrew Fulton KC, of One Essex Court and Twenty Essex respectively.
Goodhead said: “It is an extraordinary honour to return to this case. My focus is not on the past, nor on a dispute between law firms. It is on the people affected by Mariana, on the justice they have been waiting for over a decade, and on ensuring that the case is in the strongest possible position going forward. I feel an enormous responsibility to help conclude what we started eight years ago.”
Last week, Mr Justice Constable rejected a request by BGI to stay the damages phase of the proceedings, which are due to go to trial next April. A public hearing on 5 and 6 October before a different judge will decide which of the two firms should represent the claimants.
The litigation followed the November 2015 collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Minas Gerais. The dam, operated by BHP and Vale joint venture Samarco, released mining waste into the Doce River basin and killed 19 people.
The High Court held BHP liable under Brazilian law in November 2025 in a major victory for PG.
The Court of Appeal refused permission to appeal in May. The next phase will address causation, loss and compensation, with hearings scheduled until March 2028.
According to a Financial Times report, litigation funder NorthWall Capital is funding BGI. The firm funded PG’s conduct of the Mariana Dam litigation from 2021 to 2023, when Goodhead was still a partner at the firm.
London-based BGI, which has enlisted Hausfeld as co-counsel in the case, operates under an agreement with US firm Bailey & Glasser. According to a UK Companies House filing, Evans assumed significant control of the firm in February.
PG, Humphries Kerstetter, which represents the client committee, and HSF Kramer, which replaced Slaughter & May as BHP’s adviser last year, were contacted for comment. Quinn Emanuel declined to comment.
Separately, Pogust Goodhead co-founder Harris Pogust announced on LinkedIn that he would set up a new litigation-funding consultancy, Continuum Legal Advisors, which he described as “the architect, designer, creator and launcher of global litigation initiatives”.
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