Chiquita Brands International Inc. and its lawyers at Covington & Burling have failed to stop the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from releasing sensitive documents it obtained during its investigation of a Chiquita subsidiary’s payments to Colombian paramilitary groups. The SEC has agreed to release these documents to the nonprofit National Security Archive, which had sought them through a Freedom of Information Act request.
In a ruling Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected the company’s “reverse FOIA request,” as it’s known. Upholding a lower court, the appellate court held that Chiquita could not block the release of these documents by claiming that the information would jeopardize its right to a fair trial. Chiquita is a defendant in a pending human rights case in Florida brought by Colombian citizens who were tortured by the paramilitary and by family members of those who were murdered.
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