Good news for a Swedish film maker whose documentary about a crusading lawyer and his attempts to represent Nicaraguan plantation workers.
According to the Guardian UK the original case around which the film documentary was made revolved around the spraying of DBCP, or dibromochloropropane, a worm-killing pesticide, on banana plantations in five Central American countries in the 1970s. Laborers say it damaged their health and, in the case of men, left them sterile. Dole denied causing any harm.
After initial victories for the workers in Nicaraguan and American courts US courts overturned part of the verdicts opening the doors for the dole suit for defamation. In their lawsuit Dole Foods had requested that the movie be banned and that Gertten the filmmaker be prohibited from commenting on the company.
The International Federation of Journalists had condemned the legal action as “unforgivable censorship” but little was made of this in the major US media.
“Hometown support” Swedish MP’s had signed a petition in support of the movie maker and free speech .Also Swedish grocers demanded talks regarding the suit and a large Swedish restaurant chain had started a boycott of Dole products .
Boycott and pressure worked .The Dole Foods announcement dropping the suit said Dole believed it had a strong case; it chose to dismiss the suit because of “the free speech concerns being expressed in Sweden”.
Maybe it was a good time to get out from under some bad PR at a key moment?
The dropping of the lawsuit comes in the midst the company’s launch of their initial public stock offering .Which is expected to raise $500 million to pay down Dole’s debt.
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