Nestlé, Hershey, Mars are among cocoa importers to have defeated an attempt to revive allegations they benefited from child slavery on cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the proposed class action lawsuit from eight plaintiffs, each a citizen of Mali, who sought to blame Hershey, Nestle, Mars, Mondelez International and three other companies for human trafficking.
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According to the plaintiffs, they were forced to work as children on farms after being promised well-paying jobs in remote areas of the west African country. They also allege that it was months or years before they were able to return home.
However, the appeals court found there was no link between the plaintiffs’ forced labour and the importers.
US Circuit Judge Justin Walker wrote the “plaintiffs in this case deserve the greatest sympathy and the people who took away their childhoods deserve the greatest condemnation.
“But the plaintiffs did not plausibly allege a connection between those people and the importers. The plaintiffs, therefore, lack standing to sue the importers.”
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By GlobalDataWalker also wrote: “Is there a ‘possibility’ that at least some of the importers sourced cocoa from those farms? Yes, but is it ‘plausible’? Not on this complaint.”
As a result, the court concluded the plaintiffs did not “connect the defendants to any specific cocoa plantations,” as they made no mention of which specific plantations they worked on as children.
A lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Terry Collingsworth, said his clients were “extremely disappointed” and are “considering their legal options.”
According to Reuters, the lawyer said the court “rewarded the chocolate multinational defendants … for concealing their cocoa supply chains, such that former child slaves are unable to link a specific company to the Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) farms where they were enslaved”.
