(Adds campaigners' comment, details from the ruling)
By America Hernandez
PARIS, Feb 28 (Reuters) - A French civil court ruled on
Tuesday that a lawsuit brought by campaigners against energy
major TotalEnergies over its oil projects in Uganda
and Tanzania was inadmissible.
Under the case filed in 2019, six French and Ugandan
activist groups had accused the company of not doing all it
could to protect people and the environment from the Tilenga oil
development and the $3.5 billion East African Crude Oil
Pipeline.
The campaigners wanted the court to order TotalEnergies to
halt the east African projects, basing their case on a 2017
French law that requires companies to identify human rights and
environmental risks in their global operations and supply
chains, and to take measures to prevent them.
The Paris civil court dismissed the request, saying that
only a judge examining the case more in depth could assess
whether the accusations against TotalEnergies were founded, and
to then proceed to an audit of operations on the ground.
TotalEnergies in a statement to Reuters said the court had
found it "formally established a vigilance plan comprising the
five items required by the duty of vigilance law, in sufficient
detail so as not to be considered purely summary".
The court in its ruling, the first based on the 2017 law,
said nothing prevented France from enacting laws that govern the
overseas activities of companies present in France.
TotalEnergies had argued a French court did not have
jurisdiction over the overseas activities of its subsidiary
TotalEnergies EP Uganda.
The campaigners can refile their suit as a standard trial,
rather than the emergency fast-track procedure that was the
basis of Tuesday's ruling.
Friends of the Earth France said they reserved their right
to further legal action.
(Reporting by America Hernandez and Benjamin Mallet; editing by
Silvia Aloisi and Barbara Lewis)
