Court Allows Claims of Forced Labor to Build World Cup Stadiums

 

“FIFA World Cup 2022 – Final – Argentina 3:3 (4:2 p) France

Lusail Stadium, Lusail – December 18, 2022”

by footpicshd is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

On June 26, 2025, in F.C. v. Jacobs Solutions Inc., Magistrate Judge Cyrus Y. Chung (District of Colorado) partly granted and partly denied a motion to dismiss claims against U.S. companies under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) alleging their participation in a venture that used forced labor to build stadiums in Qatar for the 2022 World Cup. The opinion is masterful, carefully navigating many of the issues that arise in TVPRA claims, such as standing, personal jurisdiction, extraterritoriality, and “participation in a venture.”

The decision recognizes the often-overlooked significance of TVPRA § 1589(b), which makes benefiting from participation in a venture that used forced labor a criminal offense and affects the extraterritoriality analysis in important ways. For anyone interested in TVPRA claims, this is an opinion worth reading.

Victory in Qatar

On December 18, 2022, Argentina bested France on penalty kicks to win the 2022 World Cup. The match took place in Qatar, which had won the right to host the games in 2010 and then had to build stadiums and practice venues.

The plaintiffs, Filipino migrant workers, helped build five stadiums in Qatar, allegedly under conditions that constituted forced labor. The defendant companies, a U.S. engineering firm and its subsidiaries, were not the contractors. Rather, the defendants were hired to manage the contractors and to ensure that they followed proper labor standards.

The TVPRA

The TVPRA was first enacted in 2000, adding crimes of forced labor, human trafficking, and sex trafficking to a chapter of the federal criminal code with various slavery offenses. In 2003, Congress created a civil cause of action, allowing victims of the three new crimes to sue perpetrators for damages.

In 2008, Congress amended the TVPRA in three important ways. First, it expanded the civil cause of action, 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a), to cover all violations of this chapter (not just the three offenses added in 2000) and to permit claims against “whoever knowingly benefits, or attempts or conspires to benefit, financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which that person knew or should have known has engaged in an act in violation of this chapter.” Second, Congress added subsection (b) to the provision on forced labor, 18 U.S.C. § 1589, making it a criminal offense not just to engage in forced labor but also to benefit “from participation in a venture” that engaged in forced labor “knowing or in reckless disregard” of that fact.

Third, Congress expanded the extraterritorial application of the TVPRA, expressly providing in § 1596(a) that six of its criminal offenses, including slavery, forced labor, human trafficking, and sex trafficking apply extraterritorially when “an alleged offender” is a U.S. national, U.S. permanent resident, or otherwise present in the United States.

In 2023, the plaintiffs brought civil claims under § 1595(a), alleging violations of § 1589 (forced labor) and § 1590 (human trafficking). The parties consented to the jurisdiction of a magistrate judge. After the first judge’s retirement, the case was reassigned to Judge Chung, who was sworn in on February 24, 2025.

Judge Chung’s Decision

As discussed below, Judge Chung dismissed some of the defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction and some of the claims as impermissibly extraterritorial. But critically, he allowed claims for benefiting from forced labor under § 1589(b) to move forward against some defendants.

Standing

The defendants argued that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the claims because their injuries were not traceable to the defendants’ actions. Because standing goes to the subject matter jurisdiction of the federal court, Judge Chung addressed it first. Standing requires (1) “an injury in fact” that (2) “is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant” and (3) “is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” The plaintiffs clearly alleged injuries in fact, and such injuries could be redressed by damages. But defendants argued that these injuries were not fairly traceable to their conduct.

The central issue was how far Congress may go in connecting dots to create liability. Congress may establish chains of causation that did not exist at common law, but the Supreme Court has held that this authority is not limitless. In holding that the TVPRA fell within constitutionally permissible bounds, Judge Chung relied on the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Doe v. Apple Inc. (2024). Apple analogized the TVPRA’s liability for “participation in a venture” to traditional aiding and abetting liability. The analogy is not perfect, Judge Chung noted, but an “exact duplicate” is not required. The defendants were not “wholly independent actors,” he wrote, and the connection between their alleged actions and the plaintiffs’ injuries did not require “rank speculation.”

Personal Jurisdiction

The defendants are five interrelated companies. Two of them have their corporate headquarters in Colorado and did not challenge personal jurisdiction. The other three did. Jacobs Engineering is a Delaware corporation headquartered in Texas, which acquired the Colorado-based companies in 2017. After the acquisition, Jacobs integrated their operations with its own, and Jacobs employees worked on the World Cup project from Colorado offices. Thus, Judge Chung concluded, “the plaintiffs have alleged that Jacobs Engineering purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities in Colorado in a way that relates to this lawsuit.”

The same was not true of Jacobs Solutions, another subsidiary incorporated after the plaintiffs completed their work, which the court dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court also dismissed a Dutch subsidiary of one of the Colorado-based companies because it had no contacts with the forum other than its contacts with its parent company.

Extraterritoriality

The defendants also argued that the TPVRA’s cause of action did not apply extraterritorially to claims of forced labor and human trafficking in Qatar. In a Solomonic (and correct) decision, Judge Chung dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims for human trafficking under § 1590 but not their claims that the defendants benefited from forced labor under § 1589(b).

The first question is whether the TPVRA’s cause of action, § 1595(a), applies extraterritorially at all. I have written about this before. To be briefer this time, § 1595(a) creates a cause of action for “a victim of a violation of [the TVPRA]” against perpetrators and knowing beneficiaries. Section 1596(a) expressly extends six of the TVPRA’s criminal “offenses” extraterritorially when “an alleged offender” is a U.S. national, U.S. permanent resident, or otherwise present in the United States. Section 1596(a) does not expressly state that § 1595(a) applies extraterritorially. But § 1595(a) does expressly refer to violations of the TPVRA, some of which may occur abroad by virtue of § 1596(a).

How one makes sense of these interrelated provisions depends on how one applies the federal presumption against extraterritoriality and particularly on how one reads the Supreme Court’s decision in RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community (2016). One district judge has held (in two separate cases) that § 1596(a)’s failure to mention § 1595(a) means that its cause of action does not apply extraterritorially, noting that RJR Nabisco held that RICO’s criminal provisions apply extraterritorially but that its civil cause of action did not. Other judges, including the Fourth Circuit in Roe v. Howard (2019), have held that § 1595(a)’s express reference to offenses that apply extraterritorially make it more analogous to RICO’s criminal provisions than to RICO’s civil cause of action. Judge Chung adopted the Fourth Circuit’s position (with which I agree) and held that § 1595(a) applies extraterritorially to the same extent as the criminal offense on which the claims are based. He carefully addressed each of the arguments and, again, his whole opinion is worth reading.

But this was not the end of the analysis because, as Judge Chung, noted § 1596(a) extends the six TVPRA offense extraterritorially only when the “alleged offender” is a U.S. national, U.S. permanent resident, or otherwise present in the United States.

In context, the “offender” is one who directly violates [one of the six extraterritorial provisions]. That is, the “offender” of section 1596(a) is more akin to the “perpetrator” of section 1595(a) than to its participant in a venture. To avail themselves of section 1596’s extraterritorial reach, then, the plaintiffs must allege that the persons or entities in the venture that committed direct violations of sections 1589 or 1590 fit in one of the three categories tying them to the United States.

This doomed the human trafficking claims under § 1590 because the complaint limited its allegations to “Qatari employers in Qatar.” Judge Chung therefore dismissed plaintiffs’ human trafficking claims under § 1590 but not their benefiting from forced labor claims under § 1589(b), about which I say more immediately below.

Apparently neither of the parties briefed this point, and I commend Judge Chung for spotting it, and for resolving it correctly.

Section 1589(b)

Congress added § 1589(b) to the TVPRA in 2008, at the same time that it expanded the TVPRA’s cause of action to cover knowing beneficiaries and extended six of its criminal offenses extraterritorially. Section 1589(b) reads:

Whoever knowingly benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture which has engaged in [forced labor], knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that the venture has engaged in [forced labor], shall be punished as provided in subsection (d).

In contrast to § 1595(a), which simply extends liability to persons who knowingly benefit from violations of the TVPRA, § 1589(b) makes such persons criminally liable. This makes them “perpetrators” under § 1595(a), who can be sued directly, and “alleged offenders” under § 1596(a), whose nationality can be used to apply § 1589(b) extraterritorially. The defendants are, of course, U.S. nationals. So, Judge Chung concluded that § 1589(b) could apply extraterritorially in a way that § 1590 could not: “the only claim that can be asserted extraterritorially is perpetrator liability under 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a) for a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1589(b).”

There is an additional point to be made about § 1589(b) that Judge Chung did not mention—it may obviate the need to apply the TVPRA extraterritorially at all. In Rodriguez v. Pan American Health Organization (2022), the D.C. Circuit held that under § 1589(b) the offense of benefiting from forced labor occurs in the United States. Rodriguez involved a claim of immunity from suit. But to hold that PAHO was not immune, the court had to find that the claim was based on a commercial activity—benefiting from forced labor—that occurred in the United States. Rodriguez expressly rejected an argument that the benefit should be deemed to have occurred abroad because the forced labor occurred abroad.

Judge Chung considered Rodriguez in rejecting plaintiffs’ argument that benefit in the United States was sufficient to make the application of § 1595(a) domestic even when an offense occurs abroad. But my point is different. The offense under § 1589(b) alleged in this case did not occur abroad—it occurred in the United States where the defendants received a benefit. With respect to claims under § 1589(b), therefore, it is unnecessary to resort to § 1596(a)’s provision on extraterritoriality or to satisfy its nationality requirements.

Participation in a Venture

Having concluded that defendants could be sued as “perpetrators” under § 1595(a) for benefiting from forced labor under § 1589(b), the court still had to address whether plaintiffs had adequately alleged violations of § 1589(b). Among other things, § 1589(b) requires “participation in a venture” that engaged in forced labor. Courts in the United States have interpreted this phrase in different ways. The Tenth Circuit has borrowed definitions from the TVPRA’s provision on sex trafficking, § 1591(e), which defines “venture” as “any group of two or more individuals associated in fact,” which plaintiffs had clearly alleged.

“Participation” presented more challenges. After canvasing decisions from outside the Tenth Circuit too, Judge Chung concluded that plaintiffs can allege participation in two ways:

First, a plaintiff can allege that the defendant had sufficient knowledge, actual or constructive, of the venture’s TVPRA violations such that it was aware that its actions, however generic they would otherwise be, with respect to the venture would comprise assistance, facilitation, or support of the venture. And second, regardless of the defendant’s knowledge, a plaintiff can allege that the defendant associated itself with the venture by performing particularized services for it.

In this case, the plaintiffs’ allegations easily satisfied the second. They alleged that Qatar hired the defendants “to oversee and manage delivery of facilities and infrastructure for the 2022 FIFA World Cup” and that defendants provided “customized” and “unique” services, “including site inspections to monitor compliance with health and safety guidelines at locations operated by the plaintiffs’ employers to construct World Cup stadiums.”

Knowledge or Reckless Disregard

It was not difficult to find that the complaint also sufficiently alleged that the defendants “knowingly” benefited by receiving payments of more than $50 million or that plaintiffs were subjected to forced labor. But § 1589(b) further requires that that the defendant received the benefit “knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that the venture has engaged in [forced labor.]”

Judge Chung found the allegations sufficient on this point. Press reports on World Cup infrastructure projects discussed “labor abuses not only in Qatar’s kafala system generally, but also with respect to the specific stadiums at which the many of the plaintiffs worked.” Moreover, as “Precinct Health, Safety, and Environment Manager,” defendants undertook an obligation to monitor labor conditions on the construction projects. Although “general knowledge of labor problems in an industry” might not suffice, here there was more.

Judge Chung rejected defendants’ argument that the defendants must have known that the venture “compelled these specific plaintiffs to engage in forced labor.” This was not required by the text of § 1589(b), he reasoned, and “would lead to the absurd result that the larger the [TVPRA] venture and the more extensive [the defendant’s] participation in the venture—and so the less likely it is to have known the specifics of individual victims—the harder it should be for a victim to obtain civil relief” (internal quotation marks omitted).

Conclusion

Readers who have made it to the end of this post will appreciate that the TVPRA is a complicated statute with many moving parts. It is rare to find a judicial opinion that addresses so many of these parts and fits them together to operate as Congress intended.

At a time when the Supreme Court has severely limited international human rights claims under the Alien Tort Statute, and may be poised to go even further, express statutory causes of action offer a path forward. The TVPRA covers only some kinds of human rights claims. But human trafficking and forced labor remain significant problems around the world. By allowing civil claims against companies in the United States that knowingly benefit from forced labor abroad, the TVPRA provides a powerful tool for corporate accountability in this important area.