US Supreme Court lets case proceed:
The US Supreme Court declined Monday to consider a request by Coca-Cola Co. to halt a lawsuit brought against it by three Egyptian citizens living in Canada. The court’s decision lets stand a ruling by an appeals court that allows the lawsuit to proceed.
According to court filings in the case, the Bigio family moved to Canada after the Egyptian government expropriated their commercial property holdings in 1962. The Egyptian government has since ordered the Bigios’ property to be returned, but the state-owned Egyptian bottling company has refused to comply, the appeals court said. (Jpost.com)
Meanwhile over at Coca-Cola Egypt, they are gearing up for their third Antarctic Expedition. Uhm, whatever.
And we are not talking about just a few cases of desert warmed coke. “Based in Cairo, The Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Egypt (TCCBCE) owns and operates 11 bottling plants and 29 sales and distribution centers. The company has operated in Egypt since 1942 and, with 7,400 employees, is one of the country’s major employers.” And they earn between $100M-$500M a year in sales.
Even with the bad press, Coke was better than Pepsi, because Coke refused to honor the Arab Boycott of Israel.
Meanwhile, despite this historical Zionist-Coke partnership, the ZOA launched a boycott campaign against Coke, in addition to helping the Bigio Family. In a lengthy piece about the case, the ZOA’s legal department has shown that Coca-Cola is perpetuating the injustice served the Bigio and other Egyptian Jewish Families, when their property and business were confiscated.
For approximately 60 years beginning in the early 1900’s, according to the ZOA briefing, the Bigios owned land and factories near Cairo, Egypt. Coca-Cola leased a factory building from the Bigios for over 25 years, and the Bigios’ factories provided bottle caps and other products to the Company. In 1962, the Egyptian government forcibly stole the Bigios’ property from them.
Coca Cola thought that they would have no trouble from a group of pesky Egyptian Jews. Well, I could have told them they would lose in the end. These Jews lasted through over a thousands years in Egypt – you think that they are going to feel intimidated by Big Coke?
In 1997, the Bigios filed suit against Coca-Cola in a federal district court in New York. In the almost 10 years since the lawsuit was brought, Coca-Cola’s lawyers “have used every legal maneuver to avoid reaching the merits of the Bigios’ case because the Company has no legal or moral defense for its conduct.”
The Bigios then teamed up with renowned Washington, D.C. litigator Nathan Lewin, and have scored a moral and we hope financial victory.
The case now goes back to a lower court, and we should remind Coca Cola of what God did to the Egyptians when they thought they could hold on to some Jewish slaves.
What is good for goose/gander…dont you worry that if a suitable superpower emerges that is properly allied with the Arabs these exact same thing will be happening to your Uncle and his place in Ramat Gan. Or do you think your Biblical allusions only go one way?
This and other reparation activities strike me as a bit odd. But we shall see what happens in Cuba and Poland over the next few years.
On this for certain: there will be some rich lawyers!
A boycott seems really out of proportion, and terribly ironic. This company refused to boycott the Jewish state, and lost a lot of business doing so, and now the ZOA wants Jews to boycott coke? I don’t think that is very nice.
Kelsey is on the money.