French industrialist’s family holding company has stake in African palm oil group

Lawsuit filed against Bolloré Group over Cameroon plantations

Agroup of NGOS and unions led by Paris-based Sherpa have filed a civil lawsuit against French industrialist Vincent Bolloré’s family holding company, urging the group to improve working conditions on its palm oil plantations in Cameroon.

“Our civil lawsuit aims to ask the French judge to force the Bolloré Group to comply with the commitments it made in 2013 to the local communities and plantation workers of Socapalm, a Cameroonian palm oil company directly linked to the group,” 10 associations and unions of France, Cameroon, Switzerland and Belgium said in a statement on Monday.

Bolloré Group owns 38.75 per cent of Socfin Group, a Luxembourg holding company, which itself owns, through two other companies, a stake in Socapalm. According to its website, Socfin Group has a portfolio focused on the exploitation of more than 192,000 hectares of tropical oil palm and rubber plantations located in Africa and South-east Asia.

“Palm oil industry has a devastating impact throughout the world on health, pollution, deforestation, and workers’ rights, but no action seems to have succeeded so far in shaking up the practices of agribusiness giants,” said Sandra Cosset, director of Sherpa, which was set up in 2001 to advocate for victims of econom

ic crimes. “Thus, our organisations are asking the courts to enforce these fundamental human rights.”

The lawsuit comes ahead of shareholder meetings for Socfin and the Bolloré Group, which are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. A spokesperson for Bolloré Group did not respond to a request for comment.

According to Sherpa’s statement, in 2010 it filed a complaint with the OECD, and after several months of mediation the Bolloré Group and Sherpa agreed to put in place an action plan in Cameroon to improve the living and working conditions of the affected communities. Sherpa says that the Bolloré Group dropped this plan in December 2014.

“This action should be an important step in increasing the accountability of economic actors, who cannot unilaterally withdraw from their commitments, nor take them for the sole purpose of buying social peace or an ethical image,” Marie- Laure Guislain, head of litigation at Sherpa, said in a statement. “Law should not remain a tool for the powerful of the world.”

Bolloré Group’s activities are concentrated across three business lines: transportation and logistics, communication, and electricity storage and solutions. In recorded €23bn revenues in 2018. Bolloré Group is also the largest shareholder in global media conglomerate Vivendi, which owns assets including Universal Music Group and Canal Plus.