The U.S. Supreme Court sided with food giants Nestlé and Cargill in a lawsuit that claimed they knowingly purchased cocoa beans from African child slavery farms.
On Thursday, judges ruled eight to one in favor of the two companies and a group of six Malian adults who claimed they were abducted from their country as children and forced to work on cocoa farms in neighboring Ivory Coast. The judges said an appeals court was wrong to allow the group to pursue its case.
Although the defendants’ injuries occurred entirely abroad, the Ninth Circuit held that the defendants could sue in federal court because the defendant companies allegedly made “major business decisions” in the United States.
