"BLOOM and foodwatch take Carrefour to court", 17 March 2025.

On Monday 17 March, after two years of fruitless dialogue in the context of two formal notices served on Carrefour by BLOOM, one in November 2023, and the other in April 2024 with foodwatch: the NGOs are taking the multinational to the Paris court for failure to fulfil its duty of vigilance in its tuna industry. The environmental and human impacts of the tropical tuna industry, the one which produces the canned tuna that Europeans and the French relish, are numerous and well-documented. Faced with these challenges, the company has responded with cynicism, deploying seven avoidance strategies, which BLOOM reveals today in its report “Drowning the catch“, enabling it to present itself as a responsible company when its sourcing is far from it. At a time when the European Union is undermining the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the two NGOs reaffirm the urgent necessity of compelling multinationals to assess and mitigate the risks and impacts of their production chains.

For BLOOM and foodwatch, “despite its legal obligation of vigilance, Carrefour does not prohibit destructive fishing methods in its tuna supplies, has not adopted a maximum mercury limit sufficient to protect consumer health, and is unable to demonstrate that the canned food it sells is free from human rights abuses. These are serious failings. Carrefour must act, and we are calling on the courts to force it to do so.”

...[T]he retailer is subject to the French law of 2017 on the duty of vigilance and has an obligation to take measures to ensure that its activities do not undermine human rights, the environment and people’s health. Our investigation showed that this was not the case for its tuna business, and despite two formal notices being sent to the company to radically change its practices, the leading supermarket chain is showing shameless cynicism to disguise its lack of will and inaction. With dialogue now at a standstill, BLOOM and foodwatch are taking Carrefour to court to hold it accountable for its actions...

[Carrefour declared that it "firmly contests these accusations and reaffirms its commitment to sustainable fishing".]