Nestlé, Other Cocoa Importers Avoid Child Labor Trafficking Case

Nestlé, Hershey, and other cocoa importers defeated an attempt to revive allegations that they benefited from human trafficking after a federal appeals court said the former child laborers lack standing to sue.

The plaintiffs’ complaint didn’t concretely connect their alleged injuries—stemming from traffickers luring and forcing them to work on cocoa bean farms in Côte d’Ivoire as children—to the importers named as defendants, so they can’t pursue their Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act case, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit said Tuesday.

The number of lawsuits aiming to redress the harms of human trafficking is small ...