A six-year-old mine dispute between the villagers of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Australia's largest company, the Broken Hill Pty Company (BHP) Ltd has been settled out of court. PNG landowners and their Australian law firm, Slater and Gordon, agreed to drop their claim for US $3.2 billion compensation for pollution caused by BHP majority-owned Ok Tedi copper- gold mine. As part of the settlement, BHP would include almost 35,000 landowners in the US $80 million compensation package which was agreed late last year by BHP and the PNG government.