Ivorian cocoa embargo likely if Nestlé, ADM and Cargill child slavery case succeeds, says judge
U.S. chocolate manufacturers would forgo buying cocoa from Côte d'Ivoire if a case against a three major cocoa procesors succeeds, warns a dissenting judge. The U.S. Sourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last month dismissed Nestlé's motion for rehearing en banc in a lawsuit brought by former child slaves who allege the Swiss giant chocolate firm, ADM and Cargill were complicit in their force work on cocoa farms in West Africa...Dissenting, Judge Rawlinson argued the court had done a disservice to the law by allowing sympathies to run afoul. "I quite agree the plaintiffs are diserving sympathy...But they do not bring this action against the slavers..." "[T]he panel majority concludes that defendant corporations, who engaged in...trade, did so with the purpose that plaintiffs be enslaved..." Later in May, Nestlé, ADM and Cargill successfully applied for the case to be stayed...until they could apply for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court...The parties dispute whether corporations can be responsible for ading and abetting crimes outide the U.S. under the Alient Tort Statute. The firms also claim they lack the mens rea...