Corporations’ ‘wilful blindness’

A US judge has ruled that lawsuits can be brought against a number of multinational corporations accused of aiding South Africa’s apartheid regime. The ruling in April 2009 by New York District Judge Shira Scheindlin means that companies, known to have supplied the South African security forces at the time with equipment used to suppress dissent, can be sued by thousands of apartheid victims for “aiding and abetting the apartheid.”