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Amnesty international and greenpeace netherlands
Chapter 13
Trafigura’s lawyers have acknowledged that an amount of CFA1.5 million € 2,200 was paid to the drivers in April 2010 for a second statement but claimed that was only because they were forced to do so. According to Trafigura’s lawyers, Macfarlanes, “The necessity for this was prompted solely by our learning in 2010 that [name withheld] was seeking to blackmail Trafigura by publicising completely false statements about his evidence.” 728
Doumbia Siaka (right picture) and Amado Bakayoko visited Amsterdam in September 2010 to meet the public prosecutor and explain in person the allegations they had made as part of the dossier that Greenpeace had submitted. During their stay, they decided they no longer wished to remain anonymous. © Greenpeace/Bas Beentjes
In September 2010 two of the Ivorian truck drivers came to the Netherlands to meet the Public Prosecutor and explain in person the allegations they had made as part of the dossier that Greenpeace submitted. These two drivers then decided that, after four years, they would no longer hide their faces and names. In June 2012 the Dutch Public Prosecutor informed Greenpeace that they would not start criminal investigations into the allegations brought forward. In the letter the prosecutor stated that, while Trafigura Beheer BV is registered in the Netherlands, it is only a formal registration for tax reasons (via a trust office); actual business does not take place from Netherlands. The prosecutor argued that Trafigura Beheer BV cannot be said to have Dutch nationality on this sole basis, and that for this reason, among others, “any connecting factor for jurisdiction of the Dutch courts” is lacking.729 The rational put forward by the prosecutor in this case is very problematic from the perspective of corporate accountability. If accepted it would mean a company is considered a Dutch entity for some purposes but not for others. This would mean that Trafigura - and companies like it - not only get the tax benefits of the Netherlands but an assurance of legal immunity for prosecution for acts for which other legal and natural persons in the Netherlands could be held to account. Article 51 of the Netherlands’ Criminal Code explicitly states