Global chocolate heavyweights including Nestlé, Hershey, Mondelez International and Mars have seen a slavery lawsuit brought against them dismissed by a US court.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C. dismissed the class action lawsuit brought by eight citizens of Mali claiming the companies, alongside Cargill, Olam International and Barry Callebaut, were responsible for child slavery on cocoa farms in neighbouring west African country Cote d’Ivoire.
US District Judge Dabney Friedrich said the plaintiffs in the proposed class action lacked standing to sue because they did not show a “traceable connection” between the seven defendant companies and the specific plantations where they worked.
In a ruling delivered on Tuesday (28 June) and seen by Just Food, she also said the plaintiffs did not adequately explain the role of intermediaries in the cocoa supply chain.
Human rights lawyer Terry Collingsworth, who represented the plaintiffs, called the verdict “horrible” and said they plan to appeal.
According to court documents, the plaintiffs in the case – Coubaly et al v Cargill Inc et al – said they were trafficked as children after being approached by unfamiliar men who promised paying jobs, but were ultimately not paid for their labour, threatened with starvation if they did not work, and required to live in squalor.
They had sued under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.
Just Food has asked the seven defendants in the case for a response to the verdict.
In June last year, the US Supreme Court dismissed another lawsuit accusing the US division of Nestlé and ingredients supplier Cargill of child slavery at Ivory Coast cocoa farms.
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