Posted on May 19, 2008 - by Frank

Khulumani to Sue Multinationals

The South African Khulumani Support Group, a South African group representing 50,000 members who suffered under the apartheid regime that was enforced by the South African government between 1948 and 1994, has won the right to seek compensation from some of the world’s largest multinationals.

Khulumani is seeking compensation from multinationals they claim specifically enabled the military, police and intelligence agencies to carry out their violent and oppressive activities during that time. They claim provisions of finance, oil, weapons and computer technology were provided, resulting in the harassment of the people that now make up their membership.

In an interesting turn of events, the New York Supreme Court granted the approval of continued action by way of default as it could not form a quorum of six judges needed to pursue a decision as four of the ten had shares in some of the companies and another was absent. This lead to the court upholding an earlier court of appeal decision allowing the claims to go ahead.

The implications of this decision are significant. If the claims are ultimately successful, they could amount to billions of dollars, but on a more wide reaching level, they could, as stated by the lawyer representing Khulumani “change the relationship between states, individuals and multinational corporations with respect to human rights.”

The following are the companies named in the lawsuit:

BARCLAYS NATIONAL BANK LTD, BRITISH PETROLEUM P.L.C., CHEVRONTEXACO CORPORATION, CHEVRONTEXACO GLOBAL ENERGY, INC., CITIGROUP INC., COMMERZBANK, CREDIT SUISSE GROUP, DAIMLERCHRYSLER AG, AEG DAIMLER-BENZ INDUSTRIE, DEUTSCHE BANK AG, DRESDNER BANK AG, EXXONMOBIL CORPORATION, FLUOR CORPORATION, FORD MOTOR COMPANY, FUJITSU LTD., GENERAL
MOTORS CORPORATION, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION, J.P. MORGAN CHASE, RHEINMETALL GROUP AG, RIO TINTO GROUP, SHELL OIL COMPANY, TOTALFINA- ELF, UBS AG, and DOE. – Taken from the original lawsuit complaint document.

The companies named are citing the foreign policies of their native governments allowing relations with the South African government under apartheid as their defense for activities undertaken.

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