Corporate actors have been involved in many cases where labour rights violations were one of the underlying alleged crimes. To find out more, visit our Case Map, and under the first search criteria (“All legal offences”), select “Forced labour” as shown below. The case results will provide you with a list of criminal cases involving corporate actors accused of committing labour rights abuses. However, do note that labour rights abuses have resulted in far more civil litigation cases than criminal ones. Accordingly, the Case Map will provide only a fraction of cases filed against corporate actors for labour rights violations.
Nestle
In this case, the plaintiff alleged that Nestlé USA, the defendant company, ‘knowingly supports a system of slave labour and human trafficking’ to produce its cat food product ‘Fancy Feast’ and is hiding its involvement in human rights violations from the public.
A variety of the ‘Fancy Feast’ product is produced using seafood caught between Thailand and Indonesia. Nestle USA’s contractor, Thai Union Frozen Products PCL sources that seafood ultimately from small fishing ships. Both parties accepted that these small fishing ships use forced labour without there being certainty as to what proportion do.
In response to defendants’ motion to dismiss, the Court ruled that the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act (CTSCA) had created a ‘safe harbour’ for the company, requiring only disclosure as provided by the CTSCA and no more. It was ruled that the disclosures sought by the plaintiff went beyond what the CTSCA required, with the Court stating that ‘the law’s [purpose] is not to clean up or straighten out supply chains, but rather you have to disclose the efforts you are taking.’ At the time of writing, the plaintiffs had appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the ninth Circuit.
Vinci
In this case, a criminal complaint was filed by NGO Sherpa against VCGP alleging forced labour, servitude and concealment in the construction operations of its Qatari subsidiary, QDVC. A report by Sherpa pointed to inhumane working conditions at these sites, involving 66-hour working weeks with workers confined to cramped and poorly equipped accommodations with several persons per room. Workers passports were confiscated, while they were also threatened that they would be dismissed or returned to their country of origin in the event of a protest. The company was also said not to have provided workers with the necessary protective equipment for the constructions sites and heat they encountered, leading to an abnormally high number of deaths. The corporation denied all allegations and sued Sherpa for defamation. In response to the criminal complaint, an investigation was opened in 2015, but closed in 2018. Thereafter, in 2018, Sherpa with NGO Comité contré l’Esclavage Moderne filed a new complaint and, in 2019, a judge opened an investigation into allegations of forced labour. The case was ongoing at the time of writing.
Signal International
In this case, the plaintiffs filed a claim against the defendant company, alleging that the defendant lured workers from India to the US with fraudulent assurances of becoming lawful permanent US residents, in order to force them to work. The workers, upon their arrival in the US were subjected to appalling living conditions, fraudulent payment practices, and threats of legal action and physical harm if they did not work. Their passports were confiscated and they were coerced to pay exorbitant fees to the defendant company for recruitment, immigration processing and travel. The plaintiffs argued before the Court that such treatment violated the TVPA and RICO. In 2015, the defendant company was found guilty of human trafficking for labour exploitation, fraud, racketeering and discrimination. The company was ordered to pay $12 million in damages. Additionally, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a separate lawsuit against the company alleging that the latter intentionally discriminated against the guestworkers, thus violating federal laws. In 2015, the company agreed to pay $5 million to settle the lawsuit.
Odebrecht
A Brazilian prosecutor filed a lawsuit against the construction company, accusing it of human trafficking and of maintaining workers in slave labour conditions. The particulars of the claim allege that the defendant company committed human trafficking, luring Brazilian workers by deceit to travel to Angola in order to work on a biofuel construction plant where they were housed in squalid work camps, their movement restricted, their passports confiscated and no proper visas provided. In 2015, the Labour Court convicted the company and ordered it to pay $13 million in damages. While many of the abuses were inflicted by third-parties, the Court ruled that Odebrecht was ultimately responsible and benefited from the abuse. Odebrecht also argued that the abuses were perpetrated by an independent foreign-based subsidiary over which it had no direct-control and that Brazilian courts had no jurisdiction. The Court ruled otherwise, holding that overall management of the entire project lay with Odebrecht’s main Brazilian-based construction unit.
Imperial Pacific and Ors
In 2019, seven former Chinese construction workers filed a complaint against the construction company in the Federal Court in Saipan (CNMI, USA), alleging that Imperial had committed the offences of forced labour and human trafficking in connection with with one of its casino and resort construction projects. The plaintiffs alleged, among other abuses, that they were required to work long hours, paid below minimum wage, portions of which were withheld, that their living conditions were appalling and that their passports had been confiscated. In May 2021, a default judgment was entered against Imperial for for forcing the plaintiffs to work in “extreme, dangerous and inhumane work conditions”. The company was ordered to pay compensatory and punitive damages of $5.8 million.
Samsung
In 2013, the NGOs first filed a complaint alleging that Samsung had engaged in deceptive business practices through misleading advertising. They maintained that Samsung claimed to uphold ethical commitments to workers’ rights which they did not, in fact, observe in their business operations in China, South Korea and Vietnam. The violations alleged to have been perpetrated include child labour and forced labour involving abusive working hours and conditions, accommodation incompatible with human dignity and endangering of workers’ lives. The complaint was dismissed in 2018, after the prosecutor had sought only to conduct an investigation within French territory. In 2019, a new complaint which had been filed by Sherpa along with ACTIONAID France led to the first indictment in France for misleading advertising. However, in March 2021, the Paris Appeals Court ordered the complaint by the NGOs inadmissible and the indictment annulled on the basis that the consent of the Ministry of Justice had not been obtained. The NGOs have lodged an appeal before the French Supreme Court.
