WASHINGTON, D.C., October 21, 2024 – In June, 2024, a federal court jury found banana giant Chiquita Brands International liable for financing the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a brutal paramilitary death squad, and awarded 16 Plaintiffs’ whose loved ones were murdered by the AUC a total of $38 million, with each Plaintiff’s award being at or above two million dollars. On October 18, 2024, the presiding judge rejected Chiquita’s motion to reduce the jury award to approximately $50,000 for each plaintiff, and entered judgment against Chiquita.
The jury had found that Chiquita knowingly financed the AUC, a designated terrorist organization, despite the AUC’s egregious human rights abuses. By providing over $1.7 million in illegal funding to the AUC from 1997 to 2004, Chiquita contributed to untold suffering and loss in the Colombian regions of Urabá and Magdalena, including the brutal murders of innocent civilians. This trial, involved the deaths of nine victims of the AUC. The broader litigation against Chiquita, however, includes hundreds more victims. This historic ruling marked the first time that an American jury has held a major U.S. corporation liable for complicity in serious human rights abuses in another country.
Chiquita asked the Court to find that Colombian law caps damages at a fraction of what the jury awarded. But the Court found that Colombia does not limit damages, and even if it did, such limits would not apply to Chiquita, because it is not based in Colombia.
In addition to EarthRights International, groups of victims have been represented by multiple law firms – including Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, PA, and Conrad & Scherer, LLP.
EarthRights’ case was originally filed in July 2007. It was joined with several other cases against Chiquita in 2008, and since then the case has gone through multiple court rulings and appeals before reaching this trial.
Media Contact:
Daniela Colaiacovo, Director of Communications, EarthRights International
daniela.colaiacovo@earthrights.org, (703) 975-0608
