At the shareholders’ meeting on Thursday, the Hamburg copper smelter Aurubis is threatened with trouble: The Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA) is investigating allegations that Europe’s largest copper producer is said to have purchased copper ore from mining companies in Peru for years, which was mined, processed and shipped in violation of human and environmental rights. Aurubis would have violated the German supply chain law.
There is much to suggest that this is the case. The Catholic relief organization Misereor has therefore filed a complaint with Bafa. Not against the Peruvian mining companies, which operate the Puerto Huarmey loading port through the Antamina company, located three hundred kilometers north of the capital Lima. But against the Hamburg company Aurubis, Europe’s largest copper importer and recycler.
Since 2015, Peruvian non-governmental organizations such as CooperAcción and Red Muqui have repeatedly appealed to the Hamburg company to disclose which mines it gets its copper ore from. Proceedings regarding the contamination of drinking water sources were and are ongoing against several mines from which Aurubis allegedly obtained copper ore, such as Las Bambas and Antapaccay.
People died repeatedly during protests in 2012 and 2015 against the two mines mentioned, says Jaime Borda, coordinator of the Red Muqui. Borda, but also several of his colleagues from CooperAcción, a critical development organization based in Lima, have contacted Aurubis on several occasions. “We have asked the company to be transparent about where it sources its copper ore from,” said Borda.
Lip service to “responsibility in the supply chain”
Aurubis has repeatedly refused this, at shareholder meetings as well as in direct conversations. “Trade secret,” was also the succinct answer from the company headquarters on the Elbe island of Peute in Hamburg when asked by taz.
The sustainability strategy of the copper company, which won the German Sustainability Prize in 2024, includes “responsibility in the supply chain”. But in reality these statements seem like empty words. The company has explicitly set up a complaint mechanism for local population groups near mines. But it is hardly accessible to members of indigenous communities, who often only speak the local language Quechua.
Since the introduction of the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act on January 1, 2023, German companies with 1,000 or more employees have also been obliged to comply with certain human rights and environmental standards in their supply chain. Aurubis is one of them, with around 7,000 employees and sales of around 14 billion euros.
That’s why Jaime Borda from Red Muqui was confident in February 2023 that Aurubis would now provide insight into its supply chain and clarify where the copper it sources from Peru comes from. But Aurubis, which, according to research by the Romero Christian Initiative, imported thousands of tons of copper ore between 2019 and 2023 from a mine in Panama that was closed by the Constitutional Court at the end of 2023 due to environmental risks, refused. For “competition law and contractual reasons,” no information is published about “suppliers, specific mines and purchased quantities,” according to the company’s press department.
Reasons why Red Muqui and CooperAcción continued to research and investigate the Antamina mine. They met Estela Rojas, who has been living with thyroid cancer since 2011. Her husband suffers from colon cancer. Like them, dozens of residents of the small port town of Puerto Huarmey have high blood metal levels. “Every month a person dies from poisoning,” says Rojas.
Our complaint was accepted as justified a few days ago.
Mattes Tempelmann, Misereor
“Arsenic has been found in the blood of many children and adults in our communities and the doctors urgently recommend that we leave our homeland,” explains Rojas to Red Muqui and Misereor. In November 2025, the two organizations submitted two complaints against the Hamburg metal group Aurubis to the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control.
“This was accepted as justified a few days ago,” says Mattes Tempelmann, Misereor consultant for mining, ecology and human rights, to the taz. The Federal Office will now initiate an examination. It is likely that Aurubis will then have to provide insight into purchasing practices and demonstrate whether and how it has fulfilled its due diligence obligations to protect human rights and the environment in and around Puerto Huarmey. A first stage success from the perspective of the victims, who can now hope that the causes of the contamination will be eliminated and that they will be granted compensation.
This is not good news for Aurubis shareholders, especially since two further complaints are pending under the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act: one in Peru and one in Mexico. The insistence on supposed trade secrets could cost the copper company dearly.