Background: Chiquita Brands International is an American company based in the United States. It is known for its production and distribution of bananas and other fruits. 

In 2007, the company admitted making payments amounting to over $1.7 million to the paramilitary organization United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) between 1997 and 2004. This period coincided with Colombia’s civil war which started in 1964 and claimed the lives of over 220,000 people. The AUC, was formed as a coalition of heavily armed far-right groups, was sought out by drug traffickers and businesspeople seeking protection from leftist guerrilla groups. The US Government designated the AUC as a terrorist organization. Thus, by supporting the AUC, Chiquita Brands International committed a federal crime. Chiquita´s guilty plea resulted in a $25 million criminal fine and a five-year corporate probation. 

Legal Proceedings: After Chiquita’s guilty plea, several lawsuits were filed in US courts in 2007 by Colombian citizens whose relatives were victims of paramilitary violence from the 1990s to 2004. They accused Chiquita of supporting Colombian paramilitary groups, which they claimed led to extrajudicial killings, torture, disappearances, and other serious crimes by the AUC. In 2008, six of these lawsuits were consolidated and transferred to the Southern District of Florida by the US Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) Panel. In 2011, an additional two lawsuits were filed in Washington by families of victims allegedly killed by the AUC between 1990 and 2004. These cases were later consolidated with the previous claims in Florida by the MDL panel, totalling thousands of Colombian plaintiffs, as a federal class action. 

Initially, the lawsuits invoked the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act, but the Alien Tort Claims Act claims were dismissed by the US court. The cases proceeded under Colombian law against Chiquita and under the US Torture Victim Protection Act against individual Chiquita executives and board members. 

In 2019, the court denied the motion of class certification. As a result, a new complaint was filed against Chiquita on behalf of individual plaintiffs. 

A On December 15, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled that bellwether cases (a ´´bellwether´´ case is a test case that is selected from a larger group of similar cases, aimed to provide insight into how other similar cases might be resolved, particularly in terms of settlement or trial strategy) could proceed to trial.  

A group of plaintiffs, referred to as the “bellwether” plaintiffs, comprised of relatives of eight men murdered by the AUC, was selected to proceed to trial. The bellwether jury trial began on April 22, 2024. 

The plaintiffs argued that Chiquita’s payments to the AUC facilitated arms, ammunition, and drug shipments, benefiting the company during the paramilitary group’s reign of terror in a 7,000-square-mile farming region until its dissolution in 2006. They claimed the AUC’s actions, including killings and forced displacements of farmers, allowed Chiquita to purchase land inexpensively and expand its operations profitably. 

On June 10, 2024, a South Florida jury found Chiquita Brands International responsible for the wrongful deaths of the eight men murdered by the AUC and awarded surviving family members $38.3 million in damages for the victims’ deaths. 

The second bellwether trial is scheduled for July 15, 2024.