Jesus Christ in velvet hotpants! More litigious bullshit. WTF is going on in the world today? These two slimeball money grubbing soul eaters need to be ripped limb from limb in the public square!
**CORPORATIONS:
DO NOT SETTLE ON THIS, STAND UP TO THESE BOTTOM FEEDERS!**
Ayn Rand in a body condom! What’s the buzz here?
It’s difficult to comment on the suit with the limited amount of information in the article. The crux of it is the argument that “[The defendants’] conduct was so integrally connected to the abuses that apartheid would not have occurred in the same way without their participation.”
If the analogy between this case and the suit against corporations that did business with the Third Reich is solid (eg; direct benefits from government abuses, on par with manufactories making use of economical prison-camp labour provided by the Nazis,) then the case is perfectly valid and the offenders should have the pants sued off them. “When in Rome…” just doesn’t hold up.
If the substance of the case is that the involved companies had the moral obligation to voluntarily impose sanctions against South Africa in order to effect political change, while I may agree with this from an ethical point-of-view, it certainly doesn’t have any legal merit and the plaintiffs are out-of-luck. Somehow, I doubt that this is the case.
Well one thing is crystal clear, Hausfeld is a gold digger. I find it hard to believe he would be involved for moral reasons. What the companies were doing was legal, perhaps not a good idea, but again, legal. Keep in mind how image conscious these companies are, and bad PR is something they strive to avoid like the plague.
If they want to avoid bad PR, then perhaps they should keep their greedy mitts out of countries where such egregrious violations of human rights occur. So what if it was legal? It was wrong.
And your charicterization of Hausfield is bullshit:
The fact that the named corporations managed to make money is no justification for the fact that their activities contributed to one of the most despicable periods in the twentieth century, despite what some conservatives believe.
I want that!
Hey, I wouldn’t knock the “raising public awareness” angle. It wasn’t too long after I read up on IG Farben before I discovered that Bayer aspirin’s micro-coating failed to prevent me from getting an upset stomach. It tasted just a little too much like Zyklon-B.
I’d like to see a that as a dash board statue.
Amen, Sofa King. I feel the same way about Ford, (not to mention VW and BMW,) and Hugo Boss. A long memory helps to prevent us from going down that road again.
There is a considerable amount of background relevant to the suit available at Africa Action, not the least of which is this summary:
(My emphasis.)
It looks like a pretty solid case, and a long time in coming.
Paging Jodi, Bricker and minty green.
Paging Jodi, Bricker and minty green.
Where are the governments in all this? Apparently they were
doing practically nothing. It is not IBM’s job to decide that country XYZ is immoral and refuse to do business within it. That is why we have governments with their ability to restrict trade.
If the goddamn US government doesn’t have the guts to place SA under an embargo, why should IBM? By placing the “blame” on corporations, we give all the governments who sat on their thumbs a free pass. We also give governments a free pass for today’s evil regimes, since corporations should police themselves. Just conducting business within the law isn’t good enough, I suppose…
And if this suit is a winner, they still wouldn’t have to make a moral judgement. An expectation of liability would act as a price signal.
Should he say he’s in it for the money? Ummm no, he isn’t going to reveal his true intentions. Ever hear if spin?
It’s all a moot point, because he knows these companies don’t want to touch this with a 10 foot pole, so they’ll quietly settle.
The best way to raise awareness is to sweep things under the rug and silently run off with millions. :rolleyes:
Larry, it looks like the complaint forgot Evian water for keeping them refreshed while they tortured people.
It almost reminds me of the peer to peer network argument.
“Well they used IBM computers to make a death database, IBM is evil!!!”
Just because a product was used in a way it was not intended shouldn’t neccessarily make the company liable of wrongdoing.
Now the firearms issue in SA is another thing.
Nice, an expectation of liability based on conducting legal business with another country. The act of selling products in complete accordance with the law should not expose sellers to lawsuits, period.
**
Who does this guy represent? I wonder if poor whites who weren’t able to compete with slave labor get a piece of this pie.
Marc
Hiya. On behalf of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, I apologise for any of the following: Apartheid, colonisation of Asian countries, slave trade and subsequent transport, protestantism in the United Kingdom, colonisation of South American countries, colonisation of various Caribian islands, sending over our finest sons to what is now the US and Canada, and the Golden Earring.
So, companies that ignored the economic boycot of South Africa are being sued. And this is bad, why?
Sure, a lot of the people sueing will have dubious claims at best. If you want to change that, change the American judicial system. Don’t blame the lawyers who take advantage of it.
Either people will get what’s coming to them, or they’ll earn a few bucks that they don’t really deserve. Kinda like the 400 pound man who sues McDonalds, or the lung cancer “victim” who sues Marlboro.
It’s the system that’s at fault, no the lawyers. I’d like to see them try to get to Royal Dutch Shell, though - even though they deserve every claim they get for completely ignoring the boycot.
On behalf of the population of the Earth that does not share the heritage of the Netherlands, I gratefully accept your apology, Coldy.
Now if you’ll throw in a brief synopsis explaining the whole Flying Dutchman thing, we’ll call this all square and then we can get back to speculating on who “The Bachelor” is going to pick as his sweetie.
Yeah well we can still get pissed at people abusing the system. after all we have to live with the consequences of it.
Actually, this isn’t the case at all- the entire complaint rests on the premise that the defendants were in violation of Customary International Law. If they can’t convince the courts of that, then they lose. Very simple. There is liability, if the companies knew that they were doing business with those responsible for human rights violations, and that the goods or services supplied could be used in the furtherance of those violations. It’s not much different from the case of an individual supplying a weapon to someone whom they know intends to commit a crime, or offering them a ride to their victim’s residence, or giving them a place to stay while they plan it. All of these things would and should be perfectly legal, in the absence of a crime, but knowledge of the crime makes those acts themselves criminal.
Selling armored cars to police and military organizations who are well known to be acting in violation of international law indicates complicity. When there are international sanctions against a corrupt regime, and a bank sees an opportunity to loan that government huge sums of money in anticipation of profiting from extortionist interest rates, that very clearly allows the criminals to hold out longer than they would have without a bail-out, and the bank is culpable for every death, beating, illegal imprisonment, etc that would not have taken place without the aid that they provided.
If I know someone wants to kill you, and I legally sell them the means with which to do it, are you saying you’re not going to hold a grudge? After all, a guy’s got a right to make a buck.
Suffering Christ.