Chiquita loses suit to stop release of Colombia records

[Judi Lynn]

Chiquita loses suit to stop release of Colombia records
By Andrew Zajac
Bloomberg News
Posted: Thursday, Nov. 21, 2013

Chiquita Brands International Inc.’s bid to stop the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from releasing documents on payments to Colombian terrorist groups was thrown out of court.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington rejected the company’s argument that the damage it would suffer from disclosure of the records, in a case in Florida connected to the Colombian payments, should bar their release to a public- interest group under the Freedom of Information Act.

“Chiquita’s speculation about potential publicity and its effect on a future jury in the Florida litigation does not satisfy the level of certainty required” to exempt the records from the law, Leon said in his ruling Wednesday. “There can be no doubt that the SEC rationally determined from the record that disclosure of the Chiquita payment documents would not seriously interfere with the fairness of the Florida litigation,” Leon wrote.

Charlotte-based Chiquita contended the documents might compromise the impartiality of the Florida court proceedings. The company is fighting multiple suits brought by families claiming relatives were kidnapped and murdered after Chiquita made payments to the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, and other terrorist groups. Complaints from around the U.S are consolidated in a court in Fort Lauderdale.

More:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/11/21/4485738/chiquita-loses-suit-to-stop-release.html#.Uo5ixurnZNU#storylink=cpy

[Judi Lynn]

1. Time: Terrorism and Bananas in Colombia

Terrorism and Bananas in Colombia
By Sibylla Brodzinsky/ Bogota Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe headed to Washington this week, hoping to contain the fallout from an ever-widening scandal linking some of his closest allies to right-wing paramilitaries — a scandal that is threatening a key free-trade agreeement and future military aid from the U.S.
The trip puts Uribe under the spotlight of a Democratic-controlled Congress, some of whose legislators have expressed concern over the light sentences awaiting confessed paramilitary leaders under a deal negotiated by the Colombian government.

But Washington has made its own deal with at least one backer of the Colombian paramilitaries: Under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in March, banana giant Chiquita Brands International acknowledged it had paid $1.7 million to Colombia's paramilitary groups. The company said it had made the payments to protect its employees, but about half of the money was paid after the paramilitary federation in question, the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, had been placed on Washington's list of foreign terrorist organizations in September of 2001.

~ snip ~
The terms of the deal scandalized human rights activists in Washington and high-level officials in Colombia: "If they had admitted to paying Al-Qaeda, things would be different," said Dan Kovalik, a lawyer with the United Steelworkers Union, which is sponsoring civil suits against a number of U.S. corporations for allegedly hiring Colombian paramilitaries to kill or intimidate union members and officials.

"It's like they're saying, well, yes, they're terrorists, but they're our terrorists," Kovalik said.

More:
Terrorism and Bananas in Colombia - TIME http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1616991,00.html#ixzz2lJgxzZnj