Companies merely doing business with the regime in South Africa had their lawsuits dismissed. That left those who provided tools for repression.

According to the plaintiffs, the car manufacturers Daimler, Ford and General Motors knew their cars were to be used to suppress dissent. IBM knew its IT systems were to being used to strip people of their rights. The action can also proceed against Rheinmetall Group, which owns an armaments maker.

These actions under the Alien Tort Claims Act are to be permitted to proceed. The cases against them describe classic examples of what we at APEsphere refer to as the "use chain". In other words, as the BBC report put its: "The judge disagreed with IBM's argument that it was not the company's place to tell clients how to use its products."

Claims against banks Barclays and UBS were dismissed.