A six-year-oldmine dispute between the villagersof Papua New Guinea (PNG) andAustralia's largest company, theBroken Hill Pty Company (BHP)Ltd has been settled out of court.PNG landowners and theirAustralian law firm, Slater andGordon, agreed to drop their claimfor US $3.2 billion compensationfor pollution caused by BHPmajority-owned Ok Tedi copper-gold mine. As part of the settlement, BHP would include almost35,000 landowners in the US $80million compensation packagewhich was agreed late last year byBHP and the PNG government.