Opinion analysis

Supreme Court Thursday File a lawsuit Allegations that Nestlé and Cargill, two American companies, contributed to human rights violations in Cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast. The judge ruled by an 8 to 1 vote that the lawsuit cannot be continued because it is based on conduct that occurred overseas. Although this decision is clearly a victory for the two companies, it is not the overall victory that the business community seeks. The judges left the question of whether the federal law at the heart of the case fully allows litigation against American companies.

Thursday’s decision was made in a lawsuit filed by six Malian citizens who claimed that they had been enslaved in cocoa plantations in the Ecuadorian coast when they were young. The plaintiff argued that the conditions there were very bad: they worked long hours without pay, had very little food, and if they did not work fast enough, they would be beaten with whips and branches.

The plaintiff filed a lawsuit against Nestlé and Cargill in California federal court, accusing these companies of aiding and abetting human rights violations because they purchased cocoa beans from the plantation, even though these companies knew that the plantation used child slavery. The plaintiff added that these companies also provided support to cocoa growers, such as personal consumption and agricultural supplies such as fertilizers and tools.

The plaintiff relied on the Alien Tort Act, an 18th-century law that allowed foreigners to file a lawsuit in a US court for serious violations of international law. The court of first instance dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that the core activities of the plaintiff’s complaint were normal for the multinational company, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit restored the case. The Ninth Circuit concluded that the lawsuit may continue because Nestlé and Cargill made “significant operational decisions” in the United States, and “financing decisions… also originated” in the United States. These companies appealed to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court agreed to weigh in last year.

In Chief Justice John Roberts and Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Koney Ba In a brief opinion added by the relevant part of Justice Wright, the court agreed with these companies and the federal government to submit a “Friends of the Court” briefing in support of these companies, stating that the plaintiff requested the U.S. court to apply the “Foreign Tort Law” outside the United States “, U.S. law usually does not apply. “Almost all the actions they said to help and abet forced labor-providing training, fertilizer, tools and cash to overseas farms-happened,” Thomas emphasized in Côte d’Ivoire. In the United States, general allegations regarding corporate decision-making cannot establish the domestic application of the regulation without further content.

In the consent opinion, Gorsuch pointed out that the court has agreed (but ultimately did not) decide whether to bring a lawsuit against the company under the “Foreign Tort Law”. “This is a good thing,” Gorsuch reasoned. “The concept of a company’s immunity from litigation under the ATS is inconsistent with the legal text and original understanding of the law.”

Justice Samuel Alito disagreed. He will dismiss these companies’ arguments that they cannot be sued, and send the case back to the lower court for further litigation.

This article is Originally published in Howe on the Court.