Electronics appliance maker Dyson has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed against it by 24 migrant workers, who alleged they were subjected to forced and abusive treatment in a Malaysian factory making the firm’s parts.
The workers, from Nepal and Bangladesh, sued the firm in 2022 and described what amounted to modern-day slavery.
Dyson has denied any liability. When the case was brought it said it had been previously unaware of the alleged abuses, and the Malaysia supplier should be held responsible instead.
The case is significant for establishing the precedent that allegations against foreign companies supplying British manufacturers can be judged in an English court.
The workers described being threatened and beaten, having their passports withheld, and being forced to work long hours in unsanitary conditions.
According to their lawyers, from Leigh Day, they were denied toilet breaks and forced to work “upwards of 12 hours at a time without relieving themselves”.
Under the terms of the settlement the details of any compensation to the workers are not being disclosed.
In separate but almost identical statements posted on their websites, Dyson and Leigh Day said the resolution was reached “in recognition of the expenses of litigation and the benefits of settlement”.
Back in 2023 a UK High Court had ruled against the right of ill-treated migrant labourers to sue Dyson, the UK company that sold the goods they made, in Britain.
The company reacted triumphantly, meantime suing Channel 4 News UK for having highlighted the case and threatening Sarawak Report with legal action also for covering the concerns.
However, the law firm Leigh Day persisted, together with migrant worker activist Andy Hall and the brave team of workers who had decided to stand up against alleged abuses by the Malaysian sub-contractor who had hired them to make Dyson goods.
In late 2024 the UK Court of Appeal ruled in terms of fairness that a British company could after all be held to account in a British court for alleged abuses in the production of goods so conveniently far away and out of sight.
That ruling was upheld in the Supreme Court earlier this year prompting an immediate settlement, not on the grounds that Dyson might lose on the grounds of alleged lack of oversight or worse, of course, but on the grounds of saving on the expenses of the case.
All terms and payments by the firm have been made subject to the usual secrecy.
Meanwhile, Dyson’s suit against Channel 4 had been abandoned back in August 2024, shortly after the Appeal Court ruling that the case, in all its dreadful detail, could indeed be heard in a British court. Likewise, the threats ceased against Sarawak Report for picking up the story.
The Malaysian government now has its own duty to address migrant worker protections with acceptable diligence, before the appalling situation becomes a subject of further international scrutiny.