The Court of Appeal has ruled that the English court is ‘clearly and distinctly the appropriate forum’ to hear forced labour claims brought against Dyson, the vacuum cleaner and air filter manufacturer. ‘Equality of arms’ in terms of legal representation and the ability of the claimants to attend and give evidence in person favours England, the judges found.
Dhan Kumar Limbu & Ors v Dyson Technology Limited & Ors centres on claims brought by Nepalese and Bangladeshi migrant workers. The claimants allege that they were trafficked to Malaysia where they were subjected to exploitative and abusive working and living conditions while manufacturing components and parts in the supply chain for Dyson group. Dyson group denies the claims.
The first two defendants, Dyson Technology Limits and Dyson Limited, are English companies, while the third defendant, Dyson Manufacturing Sdn Bhd, is a Malaysian company.
ATA/Jabco’s parent company was contracted by the third defendant for the manufacture of the Dyson components and products at the factories at which the claimants worked. Dyson terminated its contractual relationship with ATA in November 2021.
The claimants appealed a Deputy High Court judge’s decision that Malaysia was the more appropriate forum for the claims to be heard and that there was no real risk of the claimants being unable to access justice there.
In lead judgment, Lord Justice Popplewell (with whom Lord Justice Warby and Sir Geoffrey Vos, master of the rolls, agreed) said there was a ‘serious risk’ that the ‘very poor’ claimants would not be able to bring the claims in Malaysia. The domicile of the parties, ‘practical convenience’, and ‘the fact that the litigation will be coordinated and conducted by Dyson UK on behalf of all the defendants, including Dyson Malaysia, wherever it takes place is a further connecting factor with England quite apart from its effect as a matter of practical convenience on the attendance of the relevant party representatives’, all point towards England as the appropriate forum, the judgment said.
Referring to Malaysian law being the governing law for all the claims, the judgment said ‘all things being equal’ it would be ‘preferable’ for the Malaysian court to hear the claims. It added: ‘They are nevertheless issues which the English court is well equipped to deal with as a matter of expert evidence and using its own experience to analyse Malaysian and other Commonwealth authorities, given that Malaysian law is closely related to English law’.
Allowing the appeal, the judge said: ‘The inability of the claimants to fund proceedings in Malaysia, and an assessment of the relevant connecting factors, make England clearly and distinctly the appropriate forum in which the case should be tried.’
