Federal Court Fast-Tracks 'Daunting' $2 Billion PFAS Lawsuit Against Chemical Giant 3M
The Federal Court has heard the Commonwealth's historic $2 billion lawsuit against chemical giant 3M over PFAS contamination at 28 defence bases. A judge described the massive case as daunting and warned it must be expedited to avoid decades of delay.
A Federal Court judge has described the Commonwealth's landmark $2 billion lawsuit against chemical manufacturer 3M over PFAS contamination as "daunting" during the first case management hearing in Melbourne.
The legal action, which represents the largest lawsuit ever launched by the Australian government, seeks to recover the massive costs of investigating, managing, and cleaning up PFAS contamination from firefighting foam across 28 defence bases nationwide. A massive 1,600-page statement of claim has been filed detailing the alleged soil and water contamination.
A Unique and Massive Legal Battle
During the initial hearing, both legal teams acknowledged the sheer scale and complexity of the case. Justice Catherine Button remarked to the court that she had "never seen a claim like this … and to characterise it as daunting would be an understatement, daunting for everybody".
The Commonwealth’s legal representative, Fiona McLeod AO SC, emphasized that while remediation efforts have been undertaken, the PFAS compounds "persist in the environment and do not breakdown". She pointed to historical research conducted by 3M, including a study on monkeys, which allegedly demonstrated the chemicals' persistence and toxicity to animal life.
The government alleges that 3M, which has manufactured PFAS since the 1950s, withheld internal laboratory testing results that showed significant adverse environmental risks associated with its products.
Efforts to Speed Up the Process
To prevent the litigation from stalling, Ms. McLeod proposed that 3M should respond to claims concerning six specific defence sites before the end of the year. These selected bases represent a cross-section of environmental challenges, including areas where contamination plumes are stationary, locations where safe drinking thresholds are exceeded, and sites where chemicals continue to migrate.
Justice Button supported this streamlined approach to narrow down the core disputes, noting that the case required an unconventional path forward.
"This matter can't run on a traditional set of train tracks otherwise we'll never get there," Justice Button warned. "We'll all be retired, if not dead, by the time it comes to trial".
The Defence's Response
3M has assembled a substantial legal team, including four barristers, to handle what its counsel, Philip Solomon KC, described as the "most complex matter I've ever seen". Mr. Solomon suggested that the government may have spent two to four years compiling its extensive statement of claim, an assertion Ms. McLeod denied.
When questioned about the core strategy of the defence, Mr. Solomon indicated they are preparing a "master list" but noted it contains "obvious elements of complex science", consisting of five limbs on liability and four limbs on causation.
For its part, 3M released a statement asserting, "we will defend ourselves against these claims through legal process". The company also noted that despite halting the sale of the affected products in Australia twenty years ago, the Department of Defence continued using them.
This is not the first time 3M has faced major litigation over PFAS. In 2023, the manufacturer settled a $US10.3 billion ($14.5 billion) lawsuit with several US public water providers to fund testing and treatment, doing so without admitting liability.
The parties are scheduled to return to court on October 16 to finalize which specific defence bases 3M will plead to. 3M has been ordered to file and serve its defence by December 11.