US Corp Faces New Lawsuit Over Terrorist Payments

cyberhog

Apr 14, 2010

(Reuters) - Nearly 250 Colombians who say they and relatives were victims of violence by Colombian right-wing paramilitaries filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking more than $1 billion in damages from the Chiquita banana company, which has admitted making payments to paramilitaries.

The lawsuit against the U.S.-based Chiquita Brands International Inc, was filed on behalf of 242 plaintiffs in a U.S. District Court in Florida. The plaintiffs were also seeking unspecified punitive damages from the court.

In their complaint, some allege that family members were killed by the right-wing paramilitary group AUC, or United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, "as a result of Chiquita's support for the AUC and its operations."

Others allege they themselves were seriously injured by the AUC, which is accused of carrying out massacres during Colombia's long-running guerrilla war before it began disarming in 2003.

The lawsuit is the latest of several similar damages suits filed against Chiquita over its operations in Colombia.

In a March 2007 agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, Chiquita agreed to pay a $25 million fine to settle a criminal complaint accusing it of paying the AUC more than $1.7 million from 1997 to 2004.

The U.S. government has declared the AUC a foreign terrorist organization, along with Colombian leftist rebels.

Chiquita acknowledged in 2007 it had made payments to both left- and right-wing militias. It said that the money was aimed at protecting Chiquita employees at a time when kidnappings and murders were frequent in the Andean country's northern banana-growing region.

"This lawsuit, and others like it, will hold Chiquita -- which had revenues in excess of $3.5 billion last year -- accountable to those victimized by its unlawful conduct," said Lee Wolosky, a partner at Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP which is acting on behalf of the 242 plaintiffs.

Chiquita could not be reached for comment.

"Chiquita has already admitted to engaging in criminal conduct that violated federal law by making systematic financial payments to a foreign terrorist organization," Wolosky said.

"Yet it has refused to provide compensation to the victims of terrorist atrocities made possible by its regular, repeated and knowing financial support," added Wolosky, who is a former White House counterterrorism official under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63D54C20100414

In February, a federal judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit that claimed Chiquita's payments contributed to the deaths of American missionaries.

The Feb. 5 ruling by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra involved a 2008 lawsuit by the families of U.S. citizens who were kidnapped, held hostage and murdered by a Colombian group known as the FARC. The families allege Cincinnati-based Chiquita (NYSE: CQB) knew or should have known that its payments to the FARC would lead to such violence.

...

“Plaintiffs’ amended complaint describes the wrongful acts performed by the FARC, Chiquita’s general awareness of its role as part of an overall illegal activity and Chiquita’s knowing and substantial assistance to the principal violations. These allegations are well within the mainstream of aiding and abetting liability,” Marra ruled.

http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2010/02/08/daily9.html


As mentioned, Chiquita pleaded guilty in March 2007 http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2007/March/07_nsd_161.html

Another remarkable thing about the Chiquita case is the fact that its attorney at the time is now the U.S. Attorney General.

When he was Chiquita's attorney, Eric Holder told the Washington Post that it would be unfair to treat any company "harshly" that voluntarily discloses payments to designated terrorists, and that if the company is penalized, the individuals within the firm should not be. Yet just a few years before he first passed through the revolving door, when he was Deputy Attorney General, Holder himself had authored a famous corporate crime policy memo (known as the "Holder Memo") which suggested that the "prosecution of a corporation is not a substitute for the prosecution of criminally culpable individuals within or without the corporation."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charlie-cray/banana-land-and-the-corpo_b_463295.html

How about that? America's top cop has a soft spot for terrorist sympathisers. Is it any wonder why so many in the world think America has no moral authority.

Mr. Incognito

Oh Please.

This just goes to show how ignorant people are of the world.

The payments were payment protections made to both sides to make sure none of their employees were killed. This is standard practice in Columbia.

This is standard practice in a lot of the most unstable places in the world.

It doesn't make him a terrorism sympathiser, it means he represented a company that had to make practical and common place payments to protect it's employees.

If lawyer represents the Catholic church does that make him a paedo?

If this nonsense is all you can dig up you're in trouble.

cyberhog

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

Oh Please.

This just goes to show how ignorant people are of the world.

The payments were payment protections made to both sides to make sure none of their employees were killed. This is standard practice in Columbia.

That excuse doesn't wash

The attorney general of Colombia, Mario Iguaran, and other Colombian officials have dismissed Chiquita's assertions that it was a victim of extortion and paid AUC to protect its workers. An Organization of American States report in 2003 said that Chiquita participated in smuggling thousands of arms for paramilitaries into the Northern Uraba region, using docks operated by the company to unload thousands of Central American assault rifles and ammunition.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102601_3.html


Iguaran stated unequivocally that

"This was not payment of extortion money. It was support for an illegal armed group whose methods included murder,"

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0411/p01s03-woam.html

Overheal

Of course Colombia's chief prosecutor would say that. Anyway, thats his opinion.

Im not saying I'll be buying their bananas any time soon, but Terrorist Sympathisers? Ha.

cyberhog

Overheal wrote: »

Of course Colombia's chief prosecutor would say that.

Would you like to share your insight? You've genuinely piqued my curiosity.

Overheal wrote: »

but Terrorist Sympathisers? Ha.

The Corporatists fund terrorists to promote their business agendas, as long as terrorists support US policy or corporate interests, they can let rip. That's the American way.

"This was a criminal relationship," Iguaran said. "Money and arms and, in exchange, the bloody pacification of Uraba."

Iguaran said the evidence shows that Chiquita, as well as other companies that have paid the AUC, have been "conscious of what they did, that what these groups did, among other things, was to assassinate."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR2007032001698.html

Overheal

cyberhog wrote: »

Would you like to share your insight? You've genuinely piqued my curiosity.

Certainly. The Prosecutor is biased in that he's a Colombian, and his fellows are at the hand of these paramilitaries (the receiving ends of these attacks) and while I understand his vitriol, its also colored.

Does he provide any evidence that Chiquita was not only paying racketeering/extortion money to the Paramilitaries to be left alone, but was in fact endorsing the policies of the Paramilitaries? Did Chiquita really say "Heres $20m, go kill anyone who opposes us" or is the Prosecutor merely speculating?

cyberhog

Overheal wrote: »

Did Chiquita really say "Heres $20m, go kill anyone who opposes us"

If you look at the ruling by Judge Marra in the missionaries' suit you'll see that it's not necessary to prove Chiquita intended murders to occur.

"It is not necessary that [the families] allege that Chiquita either planned, intended, or even knew about the particular act," he wrote. "The factual allegations of the (lawsuit) detailing extensively coordinated secret payments and fraudulent concealment, sufficiently support an inference of the conspiracy between Chiquita and (the terrorist group)."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/judge-rules-families-can-proceed-with-suit-against-214454.html

Overheal

Oh, so because Chiquita happens to be a wealthy foreign multinational thats willing to pay bribes/racketeering funds, the legitimate Colombian government wants a piece of the action by saying "we dont need to prove it, we can just say you did it. So Nyah, pay up."

cyberhog

Overheal wrote: »

we dont need to prove it, we can just say you did it.

rubbish! You've completely missed the point.

The families in the missionaries' suit are not required to prove Chiquita ordered executions - only that Chiquita knew of the effects its payments to the terrorists were causing.