This is the second post in a two-part series on the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. You can find Part 1 here.

Can The Federal Anti-Trafficking Statute Solve a Global Problem?

My previous post introducing the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (“TVPRA”), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1581 et seq., argued that the statue can be a powerful tool for obtaining civil redress for workers because of its generous statute of limitations, lack of limit on damages, and the broad scope of actionable conduct and potential defendants. I concluded that this scope likely even extends to prohibited conduct that occurs outside the United States—which is the topic of this post.

Forced labor is a global phenomenon. In 2022, the International Labour Organization estimated that 27.6 million people that year were victims of forced labor, with more than half of those victims located in Asia and the Pacific, followed by Europe and Central Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Arab States. Forced labor is most common in the service, manufacturing, construction, and agricultural sectors. While some of these forced labor victims produce crops or goods for domestic consumption, many of these products are exported to the United States.

Labor rights advocates have long struggled to hold U.S. companies accountable for exploitation overseas, but with limited success. While the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) ostensibly grants U.S. courts jurisdiction over foreign nationals’ tort claims involving violations of international law, courts have consistently narrowed ATS jurisdiction, including through the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision that enslaved child cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast could not sue Nestle because the unlawful conduct occurred almost entirely overseas. Similarly, in RJR Nabisco, the Supreme Court held that while the criminal provisions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act apply to extraterritorial conduct, its civil liability provision does not.

Is the TVPRA the solution for which labor rights advocates have been searching? This post explores if and when the statute can be used to hold U.S. companies accountable for forced labor outside our borders.

Beneficiary Liability under the TVPRA

The first key issue involves determining who can be held accountable. The TVPRA is primarily a criminal statute prohibiting forced labor and other offenses. Section 1595 provides victims with a civil remedy not just against perpetrators, but also “whoever knowingly benefits . . . financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which that person knew or should have known” committed an offense. Section 1589, defining forced labor, similarly extends liability both to perpetrators and any person who “knowingly benefits” from participating in a forced labor venture.

While there is a low threshold for establishing the “benefit” prong, courts do not agree on what constitutes “participation in a venture.” Some hold that a mere “business relationship” with a trafficker establishes a venture (Acevedo v. eXp Realty, LLC) or that any activity that “advances” the venture constitutes participation (A.B. v. Interstate Mgmt. Co., LLC). Other courts have set a higher threshold. In the 2024 case Doe I v. Apple Inc., the families of children forced to work in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo alleged that Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Dell, and Tesla were liable under the TVPRA for purchasing the cobalt the children mined. However, the D.C. Circuit held that purchasing cobalt “through the global supply chain” does not constitute participation in a forced labor venture. Instead, participation requires “taking part or sharing in an enterprise or undertaking that involves danger, uncertainty, or risk, and potential gain”—a definition which, as Professor Bill Dodge notes, was adopted by the First and Seventh Circuits.

Extraterritoriality under the TVPRA

In 2008, Congress added Section 1596, which grants federal courts extraterritorial jurisdiction over any TVPRA “offense” committed overseas by U.S. nationals or lawful permanent residents. However, courts disagree as to whether Section 1596 applies to the TVPRA’s civil remedy or only to its criminal provisions. In the 2019 case Roe v. Howard, the Fourth Circuit found that Congress intended Section 1595 to apply extraterritorially “to the [same] extent” as the underlying criminal offenses and allowed a domestic worker to sue her American employer for forced labor and trafficking violations in Yemen. But the D.C. district court came to the opposite conclusion in Doe v. Apple and Mia v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., reasoning that there is a presumption against extraterritoriality and Congress failed to explicitly apply Section 1596 to the TVPRA’s civil provisions. (The D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal in Doe v. Apple without addressing the extraterritoriality issue). In December 2025, a Wisconsin district court dismissed claims against a company that sold goods produced in a Chinese prison on extraterritoriality grounds. However, several other recent district court decisions have followed Roe v. Howard, suggesting a trend toward extraterritorial application of the TVPRA.

Recent District Court Decisions

The plaintiffs in F.C. v. Jacobs Solutions are Filipino migrants who were recruited to construct stadiums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Their employer exploited Qatar’s work-visa system, which renders migrants completely dependent on their employers, to subject the plaintiffs to brutal living and working conditions. The plaintiffs brought TVPRA claims against Jacobs Engineering, a U.S.-based firm engaged by the Qatari government as a project manager. The district court in Colorado found the plaintiffs adequately alleged that Jacobs Engineering had participated in the forced labor venture because it had received “tens of millions of dollars” to provide “customized” and “particularized services” to the Qatari government, including site inspections to monitor compliance with labor standards. The court also held that Section 1595 applies extraterritorially, accepting the Roe v. Howard analysisthat Section 1595 directly incorporates predicate criminal offenses that include extraterritorial conduct. (The court also considered the plaintiffs’ argument that because benefiting from forced labor is a violation of Section 1589, and the “benefit,” i.e. receiving funds, occurred in the United States, the conduct is covered without relying upon any extraterritorial reach—an argument which Professor Dodge has also discussed).

Several months later, the district court for the Southern District of California clarified questions of extraterritoriality and venture in Akhmad v. Bumble Foods, LLC. The plaintiffs are Indonesian fishermen defrauded into working on fishing vessels where they suffered severe injuries, punitive beatings, and malnutrition, and received little or no pay. They brought TVPRA claims against U.S.-based brand Bumble Bee, which sourced tuna from the mainly Chinese- and Taiwanese-owned vessels. The court held that “[Section] 1596 supplies clear intent of extraterritorial application for cases arising under [Section] 1589.” Further, the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged Bumble Bee’s participation in the venture by pleading that the vessel operators exclusively supplied Bumble Bee and that Bumble Bee collaborated with the vessel operators to obtain environmental certifications for marketing purposes. As in Jacobs, the court held this collaboration constituted “tailored, active, ongoing” participation, as opposed to merely purchasing goods via a global supply chain, like in Doe v. Apple.

What’s Next?

Jacobs and Bumble Bee prove that the TVPRA has the potential to permit victims to hold U.S. companies accountable when they profit from forced labor overseas, but challenges remain. At least two district courts have rejected the extraterritorial application of Section 1595 and the issue is being briefed before the D.C. Circuit in Mia v. Kimberly-Clark Corp and the Seventh Circuit in Xu Lun v. Milwaukee Tool. The outcome of these cases will have a significant impact on the trajectory of future TVPRA cases.