"Cameroon: 145 local residents against the Bolloré group dismissed in France"

[A lawsuit by...] 145 Cameroonians has been dismissed...by the French courts as they sought to force the Bolloré group to provide documents they hoped would show its links with a Cameroonian company that they accuse of violating their rights. According to their lawyer, Fiodor Rilov, the exploitation of the palm groves by the Cameroonian company Socapalm "inflicts harm on them on a daily basis" by blocking access to land and burial sites as well as by polluting the water... According to their lawyer, Fiodor Rilov, the exploitation of the palm groves by the Cameroonian company Socapalm "inflicts harm on them on a daily basis" by blocking access to land and burial sites as well as by polluting the water. At the end of November, Mr. Rilov had tried to convince the court in Nanterre (Paris region) to order the Bolloré group to produce documents supposedly proving either the control it exercises over Socapalm, or the commercial relations established with it via a Belgian-Luxembourg holding company, the Société financière des caoutchoucs (Socfin)...

On Friday, the interim relief judge found that Socapalm's activities could be "likely to infringe on the fundamental rights" of local residents. But he concluded that the local residents did not bring "any element of a nature that would prove the existence of a direct or indirect control of the Bolloré SE company over Socapalm or Socfin". The judge accepted the arguments of the Bolloré group's defense, namely its minority stake in Socfin, "up to 38.75%". The lawyer of the group, Mr. Olivier Baratelli, was pleased with this judicial victory and denounced to AFP a procedure aiming "to demonize and take advantage of the notoriety of the name Bolloré".