Victoria Gold sues engineers in Eagle tailings release

2026-06-22 19:01 ET - Street Wire

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JDS Energy and Mining Inc is a seemingly well-respected Vancouver-based company which does not seem to have a history of litigation. Rocketreach says that its 2026 revenue is $20.5 million The Mount Polley breach (Imperial Metals Inc) occured in 2014 and took 10 years to settle.

As Mike wrote on 2024-12-10 (https://www.stockwatch.com/News/Item/Z-C!III-3631952/C/III)

For Imperial Metals, the charges represent the latest in a long string of litigation arising from the failure of the Mount Polley dam. The company previously sued two engineering firms, Knight Piesold Ltd. and AMEC Earth and Environmental, claiming that they were responsible for the failure. Knight Piesold had designed the dam in the 1990s and had confirmed in many subsequent reports that it was safe, the suit stated.

For their part, the engineering firms denied any wrongdoing. Knight Piesold said that it had warned Imperial more than once about the condition of the dam. AMEC, meanwhile, blamed Imperial for the failure. It said that Imperial discharged far more water into the Mount Polley tailings pond than the pond was meant to hold. AMEC claimed that it had specifically warned Imperial about the issue 10 months before the dam failed.

In the end, the lawsuit never went to trial, as both engineering firms settled out of court. One agreed to pay $108-million, while the other settled for an undisclosed amount. The individual engineers who worked on the project were later fined a combined $226,500 by their regulatory body, the Engineers and Geoscientists British Columbia.

Imperial Metals also sued its insurer, Factory Mutual Insurance Company, seeking reimbursement for losses it suffered from the dam failure. Imperial claimed that it had an insurance policy providing up to $250-million in coverage. The judge, however, found that a clause in the policy limited payouts related to tailings dams to $10-million.