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A US jury cleared HBO of libel claims on Friday in a lawsuit brought against the Time Warner Inc subsidiary by a British sporting goods company over a report linking it to child labour in India.
Mitre Sports International, a unit of the Pentland Group, sued HBO for defamation in October 2008, after a report called “Children of Industry” aired on the broadcaster’s news programme “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.”
At the trial, which began on 13 April in US District Court in Manhattan, Mitre’s lawyers were seeking “tens of millions of dollars” for damages they claimed the company suffered after the report portrayed it as using or turning a blind eye to child labour making Mitre football balls in India.
Mitre also said it was outraged because its football ball brand was the only one named in “Children of Industry.”
HBO disputed those claims and countered that child labourers in Jalandhar, India, where much of “Children of Industry” was filmed, lived in a “climate of fear,” and were coerced into signing false affidavits.
In an exhibit admitted into evidence at the trial, a Nobel Prize-winning Indian child rights advocate said “criminal elements,” contractors and subcontractors that operated like a “mafia,” ran the football ball-stitching business in some deeply impoverished parts of India
US jury clears HBO of libel in India child labour story - Livemint
Mitre Sports International, a unit of the Pentland Group, sued HBO for defamation in October 2008, after a report called “Children of Industry” aired on the broadcaster’s news programme “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.”
At the trial, which began on 13 April in US District Court in Manhattan, Mitre’s lawyers were seeking “tens of millions of dollars” for damages they claimed the company suffered after the report portrayed it as using or turning a blind eye to child labour making Mitre football balls in India.
Mitre also said it was outraged because its football ball brand was the only one named in “Children of Industry.”
HBO disputed those claims and countered that child labourers in Jalandhar, India, where much of “Children of Industry” was filmed, lived in a “climate of fear,” and were coerced into signing false affidavits.
In an exhibit admitted into evidence at the trial, a Nobel Prize-winning Indian child rights advocate said “criminal elements,” contractors and subcontractors that operated like a “mafia,” ran the football ball-stitching business in some deeply impoverished parts of India
US jury clears HBO of libel in India child labour story - Livemint
