Lindt faces US lawsuit regarding child labour
Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Sprüngli will have to answer to the US courts over a child labour complaint.
The activist law firm International Rights Advocates has criticised the Zurich-based chocolate manufacturer for misleadingly presenting its efforts to combat child labour in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, two countries from which the company sources its cocoa, Bloomberg reported on Thursday evening.
The complaint filed in a District of Columbia court states that, although Lindt & Sprüngli has announced its intention to end child labour in its supply chain, the company continues to profit from it. The law firm accuses the group of taking virtually no action to prevent the practice.
Lindt denies the allegations
The chocolate manufacturer rejects these allegations. “We have supplier guidelines in place and systematically investigate all suspected cases of child labour within our supply chain,” a spokesperson for Lindt & Sprüngli told the AWP news agency on Friday.
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The company said it takes the issue of child labour “very seriously”. The allegations, which are “unfounded”, “resemble complaints and claims that the same organisation has previously levelled against numerous other chocolate manufacturers”, the chocolate maker added.
Last year, Lindt & Sprüngli set itself the target of sourcing cocoa exclusively from suppliers with a child labour monitoring system in place from 2026 onwards.
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