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Article

19 Sep 2011

Author:
United States Court of Appeals for Fourth Circuit

Aziz v Alcolac, Incorporated - Opinion

We consider in this case whether the Appellants have alleged viable claims under the Torture Victim Protection Act ("TVPA"), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, note, or the Alien Tort Statute ("ATS"), 28 U.S.C. § 1350. The Appellants filed a class action complaint under these statutes, alleging that Defendant Alcolac...a chemical manufacturer, sold thiodiglycol...to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime, which then used it to manufacture mustard gas to attack Kurdish enclaves in northern Iraq during the late 1980s...In granting Alcolac's motion to dismiss pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), the district court held that corporations are not subject to suit under the TVPA, and that the Appellants had not pleaded facts sufficient to support a reasonable inference that Alcolac provided TDG to Iraq with the purpose of facilitating genocide against the Kurds, which the district court determined was an element of a claim under the ATS.