US court considers appeal against apartheid lawsuit

A US court on Monday heard an appeal by major corporations attempting to stop a lawsuit over their role in South Africa’s apartheid-era regime.

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York will now rule whether the appeal can go forward or whether the class-action lawsuit against the corporations, which include Daimler, Ford and IBM, should go to jury trial.

“The plaintiffs says the appeal is not proper,” said Maria LaHood at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which specialises in human rights legal issues and supports the South African plaintiffs in the landmark suit.

“The court was very engaged and they will take it under submission and decide first whether they have jurisdiction to appeal. If they don’t have jurisdiction to hear the appeal, it will go back to district court.”

The corporations are accused of complicity in human-rights abuses during the years they did business in apartheid South Africa.

After years of litigation a US court last year gave the green light for them to be sued on US soil under the Alien Tort Claims Act.

The little-used law requires companies with a substantial presence in the United States to obey US law everywhere in the world.

The defendants argue they cannot be pursued for crimes committed by the South African government.

On Monday German carmaker Daimler called the charges “inadmissible and unfounded”.

Daimler feels US judicial authorities have no jurisdiction in its case “because no American party was implicated and nothing took place on American territory”, a spokesperson said.

The German group also argues that it “operated with backing from the [German] federal government” in South Africa.

In September, South African authorities decided to no longer oppose the complaint, which it had feared would discourage foreign investment.