Why not both? I've met my share of idiots measuring productivity wrong, and there needs to be a chain of idiots all the way up to let this escalate to a lawsuit (chains of idiots I've also seen). But I've also seen cruelty on occasion, and you need to have no empathy with your workers to have made this call in the first place.

In the case of James Dyson it's almost certainly pure malice. Horrible man.

people who lack imagination. Its much easier to believe that people are out to get you as opposed to facing your own failed decisions.

Employers are not always very smart. It took humanity half a millennium to realise slavery is inefficient and ditch it. Go figure.

It's a demonstration of power. Which is exactly why it needs fighting against, because these people (i.e. Dyson) must not have power.

And to prove it is possible to have a profitable vacuum cleaner manufacturing business that makes its machines in the UK - long live Henry!

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/24/how-hen...

And unlike Dyson they are almost indestructible!

Is it? Can we be a just society if we allow any company to close their eyes to bad things in their supply chain? Should we not just call this "failure of due diligence"?

Otherwise none of our environmental and worker protection laws make any sense. Anyone can just do the unethical thing and move everything to a country that does not care about the rights we have set over here. Do our values not apply to any human? Including to those that happen to live outside our rough geographical area?

There were two reasons the Court of Appeal hearing held that the complaint could be heard in UK courts:

1. They relate to alleged harm caused by decisions and policies made centrally by Dyson UK companies and personnel

2. There was substantial risk that they would not be able to access justice in the Malaysian courts

Both seem reasonable. The UK personnel may have engaged in an activity they knew were illegal. Foreign citizen can generally sue in another country, if they must establish that the court has jurisdiction over the matter -- which they seem to have done.

If anything, it should make the anti-slavery mandates of manufacturers, particularly fashion, sit up straight.

No, it's bizarre that this isn't normal.

The law is an expression of our desire that our industry doesn't exploit forced labour. The fact that this mostly only counts when the forced labour takes place in our own country is a weird historical detail, long outdated by globalisation.

Either you think that forced labour in Malaysia is OK in which case this seems bizarre, or you think it's not OK in which case we need a way for the law to discourage forced labour in Malaysia. The only way it can do that is through the supply chain.

If you can't globalise without maintaining standards then don't globalise. If you do, that's your liability.