A Major Legal Defeat for Talisman Energy in US Federal District Court: A Landmark Decision, March 19, 2004

Eric Reeves March 19, 2003 In a 110-page ruling issued today, Judge Allen Schwartz of the US Federal District Court, Southern District of New York, has thrown out Talisman Energy’s motion to dismiss the suit brought against them on behalf of southern Sudanese plaintiffs. These plaintiffs—from the oil regions in which Talisman Energy has, until [...]

Eric Reeves

March 19, 2003

In a 110-page ruling issued today, Judge Allen Schwartz of the US

Federal District Court, Southern District of New York, has thrown out

Talisman Energy’s motion to dismiss the suit brought against them on

behalf of southern Sudanese plaintiffs.

These plaintiffs—from the oil regions in which Talisman Energy has,

until very recently, been operating—have suffered devastating losses

of life and livelihood. Judge Scwartz’s ruling of today gives promise

that Talisman will be obliged to pay hundreds of millions of dollars of

(very partial) recompense.

This is an historic decision, rendered under the terms of the US Alien

Tort Claims Act. It finds unambiguously that “corporations can violate

international law,” thus denying Talisman Energy’s legal team of its key

defense claim.

Understandably, Talisman has had no public response; but there can be no

denying that this stinging legal defeat is of immense consequence, and

may represent the greatest cost in assessing the financial meaning of

Talisman’s brutally rapacious presence in Sudan.

The case now moves to the discovery phase in US Federal District Court;

it is here that Talisman’s vulnerability is greatest. The reckoning is

far from completed.

Smith College

Northampton, MA 01063

413-585-3326

ereeves@email.smith.edu