"Apartheid corporate lawsuit dismissed", 29 August 2014

 A Manhattan federal judge has dismissed a 12-year-old lawsuit accusing Ford Motor and IBM of encouraging human rights abuses in apartheid-era South Africa, reluctantly concluding that the case does not belong in US courts…Judge Shira Scheindlin…said the black South Africans who brought the case did not show “relevant conduct” by Ford and IBM within the United States to justify holding the companies liable. The plaintiffs had accused Ford, IBM and other companies of having…aided South Africa's former apartheid government in abuses such as killings and torture… In April, Scheindlin…gave the plaintiffs one more chance, to meet the new [Alien Tort Claims Act] standards imposed by…higher courts. But in Thursday's decision, she said the bar proved too high, and that any alleged international law violations were by Ford's and IBM's South African units, and occurred abroad.