U.S. Supreme Court rules for Nestle, Cargill over slavery lawsuit

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a lawsuit accusing Cargill Inc and a Nestle SA (NESN.S) subsidiary of knowingly helping perpetuate slavery at Ivory Coast cocoa farms, but sidestepped a broader ruling on the permissibility of suits accusing American companies of human rights violations abroad.

The 8-1 ruling authored by Justice Clarence Thomas reversed a lower court decision that had allowed the lawsuit, brought on behalf of former child slaves from Mali who worked at the farms, filed against the companies in 2005 to proceed. The court ruled the claim could not be brought under the Alien Tort Statute, which lets non-U.S. citizens seek damages in American courts in certain instances, because the plaintiffs did not show that any of the relevant conduct took place within the United States. The case had been twice dismissed at an early stage before being revived by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. When the case was argued in December, then-President Donald Trump’s administration backed Nestle and Cargill. The court ruled 8-1 that the group had no standing because the abuse happened outside the US. But it stopped short of a definitive ruling on whether the Alien Tort Act – an 18th century law – could be used to hold US companies to account for labour abuses committed in their supply chains abroad. About 70% of the world’s cocoa is produced in West Africa, and much of this is exported to America.