## Facts

- Chiquita Brands International, Inc. (Chiquita) was a multinational corporation that produced, marketed, and distributed bananas and other fresh fruit, and it did business in Colombia through a wholly owned subsidiary.
- The FARC was a Colombian armed group that claimed to represent Colombia’s rural poor and financed itself through kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking, and “war taxes.”
- The FARC opposed United States influence in Colombia and was alleged to have kidnapped and killed Americans; the United States government designated the FARC as a foreign terrorist organization.
- Between 1989 and at least 1997, Chiquita allegedly provided money to the FARC in regular payments ranging from approximately $20,000 to $100,000 per month.
- Chiquita allegedly also provided the FARC, through intermediaries, with money, weapons, ammunition, and other supplies.
- Plaintiffs alleged Chiquita concealed this support by using fake names and fictitious employees at its Colombia subsidiary, using a senior employee to deliver large sums of cash, helping create fronts and dummy organizations to receive funds, and using local transportation contractors to move weapons.
- In March 2007, Chiquita pleaded guilty to violating U.S. antiterrorism laws based on payments to another Colombian armed group and, in connection with the plea, acknowledged payments and other assistance to the FARC.
- Multiple civil actions were filed against Chiquita and related defendants, including claims by victims (and estates or family members) and separate shareholder derivative actions tied to the same alleged conduct.
- The suits were centralized in multidistrict litigation in the Southern District of Florida, and defendants moved to dismiss a wide range of federal and state claims, including claims under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), and Antiterrorism Act (ATA), as well as derivative claims under state corporate law.

## Issues

1. Whether the ATS complaints adequately alleged violations of actionable, clearly defined norms of international law and a sufficient basis for aiding-and-abetting liability against a corporate defendant.
2. Whether TVPA claims could proceed against a corporate defendant and, if asserted against individuals, whether the pleadings satisfied the statute’s requirements.
3. Whether ATA claims satisfied statutory limits (including U.S.-nationality and “by reason of” causation) and adequately alleged injury from an “act of international terrorism.”
4. Whether shareholder derivative plaintiffs satisfied demand or demand-futility requirements and otherwise stated derivative claims arising from the alleged payments and concealment.

## Decision

- The court granted in part and denied in part the motions to dismiss.
- The court allowed certain ATS claims to go forward where plaintiffs pleaded internationally recognized wrongs (such as grave unlawful killings and related abuses) and alleged that Chiquita knowingly provided substantial assistance to the perpetrators.
- The court dismissed ATS theories that did not rest on a sufficiently definite international-law norm or were not pleaded with enough supporting detail under the applicable standards.
- The court dismissed TVPA claims against Chiquita as a corporate entity and narrowed TVPA claims asserted against individual defendants to the extent the pleadings did not meet the statute’s elements.
- The court dismissed many ATA claims, including claims that failed statutory prerequisites (such as U.S.-nationality limits) or failed to plead the required causal connection between the alleged support and plaintiffs’ injuries.
- The court dismissed a number of shareholder derivative claims for failure to meet demand or demand-futility pleading requirements, while permitting only those derivative theories that were adequately pleaded to proceed.

## Legal Principles

- Under the ATS, federal courts may recognize claims only for violations of international-law norms that are specific, universal, and obligatory; generalized allegations are not enough.
- ATS aiding-and-abetting liability requires factual allegations supporting (at minimum) knowing, substantial assistance to the primary wrongdoer.
- Corporations may be proper defendants under the ATS (at least at the pleading stage in this case), depending on the claim and the governing precedent.
- The TVPA’s text authorizes suit against an “individual,” which the court read not to include corporate entities; TVPA pleadings must also satisfy the statute’s substantive elements.
- The ATA’s civil remedy is limited to U.S. nationals and requires plausible allegations that plaintiffs were injured “by reason of” an act qualifying as “international terrorism,” including a sufficient causal connection.
- In shareholder derivative litigation, plaintiffs must either make a pre-suit demand on the board or plead demand futility with particularity under the applicable state corporate-law standard.

## Conclusion

In this MDL ruling on motions to dismiss, the Southern District of Florida issued a mixed decision: it permitted certain ATS claims based on alleged knowing, substantial assistance to serious international-law violations to proceed, but it dismissed or narrowed other ATS theories, rejected TVPA claims against the corporate defendant, limited ATA claims that did not meet statutory requirements (including causation and U.S.-national limits), and trimmed shareholder derivative claims that did not satisfy demand-related pleading rules.


In re Chiquita Brands International, 690 F. Supp. 2d 1296 (2010)