Hershey, Nestle, other cocoa companies defeat appeal of child slavery lawsuit

Nestle's logo is displayed on a window in Vevey, Switzerland on Feb. 14, 2019. (Laurent Gillieron / Keystone via AP)

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected a proposed class action by eight Malian citizens who sought to hold Hershey, Nestle and five other companies liable for child labour on Ivory Coast cocoa farms.

In a 3-0 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found no causal connection between the plaintiffs’ forced labour and the defendants’ alleged venture to obtain “cheap cocoa harvested by enslaved children.”

The plaintiffs said they were required to live in squalor and threatened with starvation if they did not work, after being approached by unfamiliar men who falsely promised paying jobs.

They sued under a federal law protecting children and other victims of human trafficking and forced labour.

Circuit Judge Justin Walker, however, said the plaintiffs alleged at most they worked in areas that supplied cocoa to the defendants, which buy an estimated 70% of Ivorian cocoa, rather than specific farms that supplied the cocoa.

“Is there a ‘possibility’ that at least some of the importers sourced cocoa from those farms? Yes,” Walker wrote. “But is it ‘plausible’? Not on this complaint.”

Other defendants included privately-held Cargill, privately-held Mars, Mondelez International MDLZ.O, Barry Callebaut BARN.S and Olam International.

Mali and the Ivory Coast share a border in West Africa. A trial judge ruled for the defendants in June 2022.

Terry Collingsworth, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said his clients were “extremely disappointed” and considering their legal options.

“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,” he said.

In March 2024, the same court dismissed a similar lawsuit seeking to hold five major technology companies including Apple AAPL.O and Tesla TSLA.O liable for child labour in cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Collingsworth represented the plaintiffs in the cobalt case.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New YorkEditing by Alexandra Hudson)