Peruvian cardinal calls $150m compensation deal for 1,300 people a 'historic milestone'

Cardinal Pedro Barreto, 82, who received multiple death threats while challenging the company behind a toxic smelter, has called the $150m (about £111m) out-of-court settlement for more than 1,000 people believed to have been poisoned since childhood a 'historic milestone'.

Barreto was in Rome meeting Pope Leo XIV and other cardinals in June when he learned that Doe Run Company, a subsidiary of Renco Group, would pay $150m to 1,373 Peruvians who have suffered health effects since childhood. The news came as Barreto – the former archbishop of Huancayo, a city in the Peruvian Andes – was preparing to travel to the US to testify in the first of four civil trials in St Louis, Missouri, as part of a 19-year legal battle against Doe Run, owned by US billionaire Ira Rennert, who also chairs Renco Group.

'This is a historic milestone,' Barreto told The Guardian. 'But this long-awaited justice does not solve the problem facing many children directly affected, especially neurologically. The money will not compensate for the harm they have endured, but it is a sign that justice has been done.'

Barreto has led a nearly two-decade campaign to hold the US company accountable for the severe health impacts on residents of the Andean town of La Oroya. The Blacksmith Institute, a US environmental NGO now known as Pure Earth, named La Oroya one of the ten most polluted places in the world in 2007.

The settlement closes one of the longest-running civil cases against a multinational corporation in one country for environmental pollution or toxic exposure causing injury or damage in another.

St Louis-based law firm Schlichter Bogard accused Doe Run of failing to reduce lead emissions at its polymetallic smelter in Peru, leading to permanent injuries and harm. Doe Run Resources Corporation, headquartered in St Louis, did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement.

The case began in 2007 in state court on behalf of 17 Peruvian children and later grew into a federal court lawsuit with more than 1,373 plaintiffs, now adults. Each may receive at least $100,000 from the settlement.

Jerry Schlichter, founder and managing partner of the law firm, described the settlement as 'a historic turning point where US companies in this case were held accountable for their actions in another country against foreign citizens who are not US residents'.

Schlichter said the legal team and religious leaders like Barreto secured the deal through 'passion and belief that this was the right cause, the right fight', and that individuals deserved compensation for exposure to lead emissions.

'This will be a life-changing event for each of these 1,373 children,' Schlichter said. 'It will allow them to have a new path in life, whatever that may be.'

During his time as archbishop of Huancayo, Barreto reached out to Saint Louis University's College of Public Health and Social Justice, which sent researchers to assess affected children in La Oroya in 2005 and found they had the highest blood lead levels ever recorded. The university also found that emissions of lead, arsenic, cadmium, and sulfur dioxide had increased since Doe Run took over the metallurgical complex in 1997.

Nearly 100% of children under six in La Oroya had blood lead levels above 10 μg/dL, far exceeding levels that can cause growth impairment and reduced IQ in children, according to a 2004 study by Peru's environmental health office.

Barreto faced death threats and harassment, often from smelter workers fearing for their livelihoods, after beginning his advocacy in 2004, shortly after assuming his role in the Huancayo archdiocese that includes La Oroya.

'It is an undeniable truth that I was threatened in various ways,' Barreto, one of three Peruvian cardinals, said. He said it often happened publicly and through messages implying that 'if I continued speaking out, they would take much stronger measures'.

But he stressed that local residents deserved the credit.

'We only endured a small part of the immense suffering they regularly face,' he said.

'Before the settlement, this was the longest-running case in the federal court system,' Schlichter said, who described it as a David-versus-Goliath fight against Rennert. 'Tens of thousands of lawyer hours were devoted to the case, and we had five national law firms against us.'

The US Department of Justice joined defendants in seeking to move the case to Peru, but Schlichter firmly opposed it. 'If the case went to Peru, the children would get nothing,' he said. Winning the settlement was 'very gratifying after such a long and risky fight,' he added.

New York-based Renco Group and its founder Rennert, 92, amassed a fortune in the junk bond markets of the 1980s before building an empire of mining, smelting, and industrial companies. According to Forbes in 2024, his wealth was estimated at about $3.8bn.

In a statement, Doe Run CEO Matt Wohl said: 'We decided to put this case behind us and focus on what matters – running the business, serving customers, and investing in new technology.'