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Goods made by Sime Darby Plantation, the world's largest palm
oil company by land size, have since December 2020 been blocked
by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from entering the
United States over suspected abusive labour practices.
In response, Sime Darby Plantation appointed an ethical trade
consultancy to audit its facilities, and last year set aside
about $20 million to compensate current and former migrant
workers who paid recruitment fees to secure jobs at the firm.
In a notice published on the U.S. Federal Register website on
Friday, CBP said it had now "determined that the products were
no longer being mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in
part with the use of convict, forced, or indentured labor by
Sime Darby Plantation", citing additional information it had
received.
The finding applied to any products from the firm imported into
the United States on or after Friday, the notice said.
The CBP did not specify what evidence it had received. The
agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sime Darby Plantation said the decision indicated CBP's
recognition of the firm's efforts "in the last two years to
review, revise and... upgrade its protocols for recruiting,
managing and working with its workers".
"Today, our commitment to all our stakeholders is vigilance and
a continuing responsibility to produce palm oil that is free of
forced labour," the company's Group Managing Director Mohamad
Helmy Othman Basha said in a statement.
Shares of Sime Darby Plantation had eased 0.45% by market close
on Friday.
Sime Darby Plantation is among eight Malaysian firms that have
been banned by the United States in the past four years over
forced labour allegations.
Malaysia in 2021 announced a government plan to eliminate
abusive practices such as debt bondage, unhygienic dormitories
for workers, and excessive overtime, by 2030.
(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff and A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by
Ed Davies)
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