In October, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that a lawsuit by victims of apartheid in South Africa against 35 US and European companies could proceed.

The ruling reversed the dismissal in 2004 of the case, filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Companies involved include BP, Exxon, IBM, Citigroup, General Motors and Ford.

In its decision, the appellate court ruled that the district court had “erred” in ruling that the plaintiffs could not argue under ATCA that the companies had aided and abetted human rights violations by the apartheid government of South Africa.

Legal scholar Anthony Sebok, in a column in FindLaw on October 23. , points out that the reversal might be a “pyrrhic victory” for the plaintiffs, as, for technical legal reasons, it sets a high bar for them to show the defendants’ liability under ATCA.

It could therefore set a precedent that could make future ATCA cases hard to win. But Sebok notes that the reversal “does keep the case alive, providing a possible setting for settlement”.

Interested readers should turn to Sebok’s column, which is the first in a two-part series.