In Short - The Situation: In the last month, two courts in the Ninth Circuit allowed human rights focused cases to proceed beyond the pleading stage. These cases seek to impose liability on U.S.-based companies for alleged...more
Key Takeaways - Slave, forced, and child labor is a modern-day reality impacting some 40 million people throughout the world, by some estimates. Such practices are—and have always been—repugnant, and certainly have no place...more
Courts and legislatures both in the United States and abroad continue to prioritize the eradication of labor trafficking in corporate supply chains. Labor trafficking litigation in the United States remains widespread and...more
On Tuesday, October 23, 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an important opinion reviving a decade-old Alien Tort Claims Act (ATS) suit based on alleged aiding and abetting slave labor in cocoa farms on the Ivory...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently held in Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC that foreign corporations cannot be sued under the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”). This statute, enacted by the first Congress in 1789, is a jurisdictional statute...more
On April 24, 2018, the Supreme Court decided Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, No. 16-499, holding that foreign corporations may not be defendants in suits brought under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350....more
For Alien Tort-watchers, all eyes are focused on the Supreme Court and the pending decision in Jesner v. Arab Bank, which may determine that corporations are not appropriate defendants in cases brought pursuant to the Alien...more
On August 24, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of plaintiffs’ claims in a case filed against Lebanese Canadian Bank pursuant to the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”). Plaintiffs in the case, Licci et al. v....more
Earlier this month, the District Court for the District of Columbia denied Exxon Mobil’s motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ claims in Doe I v. Exxon Mobil, a case brought pursuant to the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”). Plaintiffs...more
Earlier this week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a decision in In re: South African Apartheid Litigation dismissing claims brought pursuant to the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) against Ford and IBM. Plaintiffs had...more