Major US banana firm Chiquita Brands ordered to pay $38m to victims of Colombian terror group it funded | US News

Banana company Chiquita Brands has been ordered to pay $38.3m (£30m) to 16 relatives of people killed by a right-wing paramilitary group it financed during Colombia’s long civil war.

The decision by a federal jury in Florida marks the first time the company has been found liable in any of a series of similar lawsuits pending elsewhere in the United States.

It also marks a rare finding blaming a private American company for human rights abuses in other countries.

“This verdict sends a powerful message to corporations around the world: profiting from human rights abuses will not go unpunished,” Marco Simons, international general counsel for EarthRights and a plaintiff’s attorney, said in a statement.

“These families, victims of armed groups and corporations, asserted their power and prevailed in the judicial process.”

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“The situation in Colombia was tragic for many,” Chiquita, whose banana operations are based in Florida, said in a statement after the verdict.

“However, that does not change our belief that there is no legal basis for these claims.”

According to court documents, Chiquita paid the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia – known by their Spanish acronym AUC – around $1.7m (£1.3m) between 1997 and 2004.

The AUC is blamed for the massacre of thousands of people during those years.

Chiquita has insisted that its Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, only made the payments out of fear that the AUC would harm its employees and operations, according to court records.

Reacting to the ruling on social media, Colombian President Gustavo Petro questioned why the US justice system could “find out” paramilitary groups funded by Chiquita, while Colombian judges have not ruled against the company. .

“The 2016 peace agreement… requires the creation of a court that reveals judicial truths, why don’t we have one?” Petro published in X, referring to the year in which the civil conflict ended.

The verdict came after a six-week trial and two days of deliberations.

The EarthRights case was originally filed in July 2007 and was combined with several other lawsuits.

In 2007, Chiquita pleaded guilty to a US criminal charge of engaging in transactions with a foreign terrorist organization (a designation given to the AUC in 2001) and agreed to pay a fine of $25 million (£19.6 million).