Three companies cannot be held liable in the United States for racial discrimination and violence in apartheid-era South Africa now that the U.S. Supreme Court has limited the use of the Alien Tort Statute, a federal appeals court has ruled. A unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Wednesday in Balintulo v. Daimler AG…that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over the lawsuit because all of the alleged wrongs took place in South Africa…[The judge] rejected all of the arguments put forth by the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs had argued that the Alien Tort Statute still allows suits over foreign conduct if the defendants are U.S. nationals or if the conduct implicates American interests…[Refers to Daimler, Ford, IBM, Shell]