Companies controlled by the billionaire industrialist Ira Rennert agreed last month to a $150 million settlement with 1,373 Peruvians who claim they were exposed to lead and other toxic substances as children growing up near the companies’ metal smelting and refining complex in La Oroya, Peru.
After 19 years of litigation, an agreement was announced on June 23, just as the first trial in the case was set to begin in St. Louis.
“It was gratifying to finally obtain what would be very, very significant compensation for these deserving young people,” Jerry Schlichter of Schlichter Bogard, a Missouri law firm that represented the plaintiffs, said in a phone interview.
The defendants — Doe Run Resources, its subsidiary Doe Run Peru, as well as the Renco Group and Mr. Rennert and other executives at the firms — deny any wrongdoing.
“While we would have liked to have had our day in court, we elected to put this behind us and focus on what matters — running our business, serving our customers, and investing in new technologies for the future. After nearly 20 years, that is the right decision for our company and our people,” said Matt Wohl, president and C.E.O. of the Doe Run Company, said in a statement after the settlement.
The Renco Group, of which Mr. Rennert was the primary shareholder, obtained the metal smelting and refining complex in the central Andean town of La Oroya in 1997 from Centromin Peru S.A., a Peruvian government-owned company. Centromin agreed to assume liability for any third-party claims related to toxic emissions from before the sale of the complex. According to the June 24 Reuters article, “Doe Run said the smelter polluted the La Oroya area for decades while under private ownership and later by Peru’s government, but that the government ‘abdicated’ its contractual responsibility to clean up the damage.”
Doe Run Peru began operating the complex at maximum capacity, and did so until 2009, when lenders severed its credit lines and the company had to cease operations and declare bankruptcy.
In 2005, a St. Louis University study found that nearly all children living in La Oroya had elevated levels of lead in their bloodstream. The study also found higher-than-average cadmium and arsenic levels.
Concentrated exposure to lead in early stages of development can lead to cognitive impairment — such as lower I.Q. and low attention capabilities, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Cadmium and arsenic can lead to respiratory failure, among other health impacts.
In 2007, Sister Kate Reid and Sister Megan Heeney, Roman Catholic nuns, filed a suit in Missouri state court against Doe Run and the Renco Group on behalf of the children of La Oroya.
Schlichter Bogard created a team in Peru to coordinate research and outreach efforts and hired several Spanish-speaking lawyers to review thousands of Peruvian legal documents.
“The clients deserve a lot of credit, and their parents, for staying with it, for having faith in us, in my firm,” Mr. Schlichter said. “Many people asked many, many times over the years, why is it taking so long? Is there ever going to be a day of justice?”
Mr. Rennert first gained notoriety on the South Fork in 1998, when he bought 63 acres of beachfront farmland in Sagaponack where he would build his 110,000-square-foot compound, Fair Field. The more than 60,000-square-foot house on the property — often compared to the opulent Palace of Versaille in France — is one of the largest in the United States. It has 29 bedrooms, 40 bathrooms, a 64-seat theater, a two-lane bowling alley, and 12 chimneys. Outrage over Mr. Rennert’s plans for the property prompted both the Town of Southampton and the Town of East Hampton to pass ordinances limiting houses to 20,000 square feet.
Mr. Rennert, now 92, began building his fortune through junk bond trading in the 1980s. He is now number 1,137 on the Forbes 2026 list of the wealthiest people in the world, and number 389 on the list of the wealthiest in the U.S. His total net worth is estimated to be at around $3.8 billion dollars, according to Forbes, down from its peak of $6.6 billion in 2022.
Mr. Rennert founded the Renco Group, a holding company based in New York City, in 1975. The company primarily has a stake in industrial interests including Doe Run, a natural resources company based in St. Louis, Inteva Products, and Unarco Material Handling. The company also has a 30-percent stake in AM General, the defense company that makes the Humvee, the all-terrain vehicle used by the U.S. military.
Mr. Rennert was convicted in 2015 of using $120 million from Magnesium Corporation of America, a mining subsidiary owned by Renco Group that went bankrupt in 2001, to pay for the construction of his Sagaponack complex. After an appeal, he was ultimately ordered to pay a $213.2 million judgement to the plaintiff.
In the La Oroya case, a date had finally been set for the first of four trials. Just days before, La Oroya residents and the Renco Group came to an agreement.
In court filings, Mr. Rennert had complained that Schlichter Bogard was making his wealth the main issue of the first trial. While the total valuation of Mr. Rennert’s assets was redacted in a pre-trial motion, there was still a chance that this information could have come out during the trial.
There is still ongoing litigation against Renco Group, Mr. Rennert, and other defendants by other members of the La Oroya community.
