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Article

29 Jul 2016

Author:
Innovation Forum editorial team

Case of Activist supported by Finnish company testifying against a former supplier shows how progressive business landscape is changing

"Thai court case that's redefining corporate-activist relationships", 29 July 2016

The case of an activist being supported by a Finnish company testifying against a former supplier…shows how the progressive business landscape is changing. The…case concerns Andy Hall, a human rights campaigner [that] carried out some field research on behalf of…Finnwatch. The resulting report found human rights violations on the part of Natural Fruit Co, a Thai company that supplies…Finnish retailers…Natural Fruit [went] after Hall, who lives in Thailand. It filed criminal defamation charges against him in 2013…[Hall has] been backed up by Finland’s S Group, a…retailer that sourced from Natural Fruit. Although the Finnwatch report was a potential corporate embarrassment, S Group’s…Jari Simolin, testified in Thailand in defence of Hall…Travelling around the world to give court testimony…is something new, says Phil Bloomer…[BHRRC]. “We are seeing a rapid rise in intimidation and attacks on human rights defenders in too many countries. S Group has shown leadership and courage: it takes guts to be honest about abuse in your own supply chain, even more to defend the activist that exposed it.” Rankinen says that S Group does its own supply chain diligence, but the Finnwatch report provided valuable further information…[J]ust as Finnwatch alerted S Group, so S Group felt it should step in when Hall was threatened. For other companies, “I hope that this could be an example,” Rankinen says.