Considering the sheer size of the settlement and the fact that the number of civilian victims is "only" 300,000, these payouts seem absurdly small. I wonder just how much of the money is going to simply cycle back to some other corporate interest or to political cronies.

All of this not to mention how deftly this entire case has the government of Brazil (and many of the regional governers) tossing all fault onto the mining companies alone. Such massive safety failures had plenty of regulatory culpability too.