Are companies above the law? BBC Learning English

Can anything be done to stop a multinational company

that wants to abuse your rights?

In this episode, we'll show you how international law

keeps the world's biggest companies in line.

Coming up: Nike's big ticking off...

A sweet victory for Cadbury's workers...

And how Shell's oil spills in Africa are dealt with in UK courts...

First up: is the law strong enough to stop companies breaking it?

Sometimes companies take it on themselves

to look after their workers well.

Chocolate makers Cadbury have sometimes been praised

for actively improving the lives of their plantation workers:

something called Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR.

But, without an international legal body to enforce rules,

what can be done when companies don't choose to behave well?

Time for some clever legal work.

In the early 2000s, Nike denied claims its workers

were being mistreated in foreign factories.

So, a man called Mark Kasky took Nike to court,

using American advertising laws forbidding companies

from making 'false and misleading' claims over those denials.

Nike defended themselves aggressively,

going all the way to the country's top court

to argue that they could say what they liked

under free speech rules.

Eventually, Nike lost and agreed to pay

to strengthen workplace monitoring.

We asked Mark whether he was worried about taking on Nike in court.

The fact that it was Nike made... made no difference. In fact, there...

there was a level playing field, we felt,

in terms of the way the court would decide.

Nike may have had a lot more money, but we felt we had the stronger case,

even though we had lost at the local Municipal and the Appeals level.

And we felt that there was no way – Nike can't...

they can't use money to beat you; facts have to beat you.

The... the logic of their case has to beat you.

So, that shows that it doesn't matter how much money a company has;

you have to rely on facts to win in court.

How did he actually sue Nike?

First of all, we sued at the... well, I...

we sued at the Municipal Court level, which is local, and we lost there.

Then we appealed it to the Appeals Court and we lost there as well,

but we still felt we had a legitimate case

and so we appealed to the California Supreme Court and there we prevailed.

What this tells us is that you can challenge a court's ruling

and try to win your case again by going to a higher court.

So, what happened in the Supreme Court?

When the California Supreme Court ruled in my favour, they were saying,

'If you're making statements, factual statements,

about your product – where they're produced, how they're produced,

what's in them –

and your intention is to convince people to buy your product,

those statements must be true.

And if it... if they aren't true, you will be sued and you will lose.

So, this tells us that if a company lies about how it behaves,

it risks being found out in court.

Mark used a clever tactic

by fighting over Nike's statements, not their working conditions.

Conditions in other countries improved.

So, how do you challenge a foreign multinational

who's doing something wrong in your country?

Let's go to Nigeria now, where the Bodo community live,

relying on fishing and farming.

In 2008, two massive oil spills from a Shell oil pipeline

polluted their land and killed much of the marine life they relied on.

Shell initially offered only food as compensation.

The Bodo community took legal action in UK courts,

even though the spills were in Nigeria.

In 2014, four months before the case was due to be heard in court,

the case was settled for £55 million.

British law firm Leigh Day worked on the case.

Daniel Leader, from Leigh Day, explained

why this case was not heard in a Nigerian court.

The case was heard in the UK because we decided

to sue the UK-registered parent company

for the failures of its Nigerian subsidiary,

and the law in the UK is that if you can demonstrate

the parent company was involved in some way

in the failures of its subsidiary,

then there's no reason why you can't hold it to account

for those failures in the UK courts.

And the rule, broadly, is that the country

where the harm occurred

is the system of law that the courts will apply.

So, if you are a Nigerian fishermen suing Shell in the UK,

the UK judge will apply Nigerian law

and get expert evidence as to what the relevant Nigerian law is.

You can sometimes sue a parent company in one country

for the actions of its subsidiary in another country.

You need to show the parent was controlling the subsidiary.

What problems do multinational companies present lawyers?

The fundamental issue is that

they will not only hide behind their corporate structure

but they'll also argue that they should be held to account locally,

in the local jurisdictions,

and the problem with that is actually you can't get justice

if you are a poor community in Nigeria, or Kenya, or Zambia,

because you simply don't have the resources to take on

multinational companies within those legal systems.

Multinational companies can argue cases should be heard locally

to make it easier for them to win, rather than going to foreign courts,

which may be more affordable for poor communities.

So, do multinationals have to follow international human rights laws?

So, the answer is increasingly they... they do,

following the creation of something called

the UN general principles on business and human rights,

which everyone agreed to internationally –

all countries and corporations agreed to internationally –

about ten years ago, which applies human rights norms to companies.

At the moment, they do not have the force of law: they are voluntary.

But, there are moves afoot to give them legal standing.

There are voluntary rules on human rights for companies,

called the UN Guiding Principles.

Many countries and organisations accept them.

Campaigners are pushing for them to be binding.

We've seen how using law internationally can mean

you can fight cases in courts that suit you better.

Sometimes this means companies can't hide from the law.

Mark Kasky's case showed us how using national law cleverly

can have a big, and positive, international impact.