Nestlégate: Swiss court finds Nestlé guilty of illegally infiltrating activist group

The district court of Lausanne has found Nestlé and the private security company, Securitas, guilty of illegally infiltrating an ATTAC working group and has ordered the companies to pay damages to the plaintiffs.

ATTAC filed both criminal and civil cases after Swiss television revealed on 12 June 2008 that an ATTAC working group which was preparing a book on Nestlé, had been infiltrated and spied on in 2003-2004 by a Securitas employee on behalf of Nestlé.

The criminal case was dismissed in 2009 on technical grounds. In the civil case, the court recognized that the privacy rights of the plaintiffs had been violated.

The IUF reported on this case in 2008. See Nestlégate: Nestlé’s critics under high surveillance