## Facts

- Six Malian nationals alleged that, as children, they were trafficked to Côte d’Ivoire and forced to perform unpaid labor on cocoa farms under threats and severe physical abuse.
- Nestlé USA, Inc. and Cargill, Inc. are U.S.-based corporations that buy cocoa sourced from Côte d’Ivoire but do not own or operate the farms where the alleged abuse occurred.
- Plaintiffs alleged defendants knowingly aided and abetted child slavery by providing financial support, training, and other assistance to cocoa suppliers while continuing to purchase cocoa.
- Plaintiffs sued under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which grants federal jurisdiction over certain tort claims by aliens for violations of the law of nations.

## Issues

1. Whether the ATS permits these aiding-and-abetting claims where the alleged injuries and principal wrongful conduct occurred abroad and the domestic allegations are largely corporate decision-making and oversight in the United States.
2. Whether domestic corporations may be defendants in ATS actions.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and remanded (8–1).
- The Court held the complaint sought an impermissible extraterritorial application of the ATS.
- Allegations of U.S.-based “general corporate activity” (e.g., headquarters decision-making, financing, oversight) were insufficient to plead a domestic application of the ATS.
- The Court did not decide whether corporations are categorically immune from ATS liability.

## Legal Principles

- The ATS is presumed not to apply extraterritorially absent a clear indication from Congress.
- When a statute is not extraterritorial, courts ask whether the case is a permissible domestic application by examining the statute’s “focus” and where the conduct relevant to that focus occurred.
- For ATS claims, pleading a domestic application requires more than “mere corporate presence” or generalized corporate activity in the United States; plaintiffs must allege specific, tort-relevant domestic conduct tied to the alleged law-of-nations violation.

## Conclusion

Because the alleged forced-labor harms and the conduct central to the asserted violations occurred in Côte d’Ivoire, and the complaint relied primarily on generalized U.S. corporate decision-making, the ATS did not provide a basis for relief; the Court reversed without resolving whether corporations may be ATS defendants.


Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe, 593 U.S. 628 (2021)