United Kingdom: Court of Appeal paves the way for forced labour due diligence proceedings

In a decision handed down on 27June 2024, the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal overturned a decision by the National Crime Agency (NCA), which specialises in the fight against organised crime, to refuse to investigate imports likely to have originated from the forced labor of Uyghurs in China. The court’s decision was based on what it found to be two errors of law. Firstly, the supposed need to establish a crime, in this case forced labor, before opening an investigation into the imports i