Farmers Sue UK Sugar Firm For Millions
Hundreds of Cambodian families are suing the British sugar firm Tate & Lyle in one of the U.K’s highest courts over a pair of plantations in Koh Kong province they accuse of violently forcing them off their land and out of their homes. The British law firm Jones Day, which has offices in dozens of cities across the world, filed a complaint on behalf of the 200 families with the U.K’s High Court of Justice on March 28, claiming Tate & Lyle owes them for the sugar it has been buying from the plantation owners since 2010. … “Pursuant to Cambodian Law, the claimants are the owners of and/or entitled to possession of the sugar cane,” the claim states. “The defendants have wrongfully deprived the villagers of the use and possession of the sugar cane processed into the raw sugar and converted the same to their own use. Accordingly, the defendants are liable to the claimants in conversion for the value of the sugar cane.” The dispute dates back to 2006, when the plantations started clearing the families’ rice paddies and forcing many of them out of their homes. In 2009, Tate & Lyle signed a five year deal with the majority owner of the plantations, Thailand’s Khon Kaen Sugar, and started shipping the sugar to its UK refineries the following year. Since then, it has imported 48 million kg of the sugar, worth more than $32 million. … The complaint goes on to state that abuses included “multiple instances of battery and criminal violence, resulting in significant injuries to seven of the villagers, with at least two villagers being shot and wounded.” It also accuses the plantations of destroying their crops, razing homes and killing or confiscating their cows. It even pins on them the murder of villager An In, an outspoken activist who had been documenting the land clearing. …
