Chiquita Manufacturers Worldwide should pay $38.3 million US in damages to the households of eight Colombian males killed by a paramilitary group in that nation, a Florida jury stated on Monday.
In 2007, Chiquita was ordered by a U.S. courtroom to pay a $25-million tremendous to settle felony costs that it did enterprise with the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary group.
Chiquita pled responsible in that case to paying safety cash from 2001 to 2004, which it stated it did with the intention to shield workers.
The jury within the civil case earlier than the U.S. District Courtroom Southern District of Florida stated within the verdict on Monday that Chiquita knowingly offered substantial help to the AUC within the type of money funds or different technique of assist, to a level ample to create a foreseeable danger of hurt.
The boys have been killed by the AUC, the jury stated, and Chiquita didn’t show its assist for the AUC was the results of impending hurt to the corporate or its workers.
“The decision doesn’t deliver again the husbands and sons who have been killed, nevertheless it units the file straight and locations accountability for funding terrorism the place it belongs: at Chiquita’s doorstep,” stated Agnieszka Fryszman, a lawyer at legislation agency Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, who represented the plaintiffs, in a press release.
Chiquita didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
