Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

“Civil society and victims’ rights groups are finding new ways to hold accountable not only the perpetrators, but the beneficiaries of [forced labor], increasingly targeting supply chains, . . .” With that 2015 statement, Human Rights First observed the legal doctrines being developed to impose lead firm, i.e., parent or contractor, liability for forced labor. That change has since materialized, creating new risks for lead firms.

For decades, activists and unions sought to use the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) to file foreign worker exploitation claims in U.S. courts. Those efforts largely were unsuccessful, and in Cisco Sys., Inc. v. Doe I, No. 24-856 (U.S. June 23, 2026), the Supreme Court appears to have shut the door on ATS litigation. That resulted in increased attention given to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (“TVPRA”).

Enacted in 2000 as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the statute defines forced labor as services obtained through: (1) force or physical restraint, or threats of the same; (2) abuse or threatened abuse of law or legal process; (3) a plan or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform would result in serious harm or physical restraint; or (4) threats of serious harm. See 18 U.S.C. § 1589.  “Serious harm” includes any harm “sufficiently serious” to compel a “reasonable person” to continue working. See 18 U.S.C. § 1589(c)(2). The 2003 amendments added a private right of action, and the 2008 amendments extended liability to entities that benefited from participating in a venture that they knew or should have known violated the statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a).

As with the ATS, courts have often dismissed TVPRA lawsuits. One ruling against plaintiffs, however, led to an expansion in the law. In 2022, the Ninth Circuit held in Ratha v. Phatthana Seafood Co., 35 F.4th 1159 (9th Cir. 2022), that civil liability under the TVPRA did not extend to defendants who merely “attempted” to benefit from a violation. In January 2023, Congress amended the TVPRA, 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a), to overrule Ratha, making “attempts or conspires to benefit” a basis for liability. 

A union and activist campaign tool—the “appeal for justice” letter—can create the record used to support a TVPRA claim. The letter follows a form: a statement of the firm’s values (“grace”); its failure to live up to them (“fall from grace”); facts identifying an alleged problem; and a request to investigate or act.  The letter is used to support allegations that the lead firm knew or should have known of the noticed problem. Along with the firm’s response, it becomes the basis for surviving dismissal and reaching intrusive discovery. Greenpeace used a version of this approach in Akhmad v. Bumble Bee Foods, LLC, No. 25-cv-00583 (S.D. Cal. Nov. 12, 2025), where reports emailed to Bumble Bee executives helped the claims survive dismissal.

The TVPRA does not stand alone in its breadth. Frameworks such as the EU’s new Forced Labour Single Portal and the ILO’s forced-labour indicators provide shared benchmarks—supplying activists with established reference points to frame workplace conditions as statutory violations under the TVPRA and other laws worldwide.