PNG Court Quashes Panguna Mine Class Action Against Rio Tinto
Panguna was once one of the world’s largest copper mines, but has remained abandoned in recent years.
Source: Gallo Images/Getty ImagesPapua New Guinea’s National Court dismissed a multi-billion-dollar class-action lawsuit against Rio Tinto Group and a former unit over damage allegedly caused by the historic Panguna copper mine in the country’s Bougainville region.
The world’s second-largest miner was the majority owner of the Panguna project, which shared it with Bougainville Copper Ltd., until the closure of the mine in 1989 due to an uprising against the project and a resulting civil war that lasted about a decade and killed as many as 20,000 people. Rio disposed of its share of the project in 2016.