(Bloomberg) -- A federal appeals court revived a lawsuit against Nestle SA’s U.S. unit and Cargill Inc. that was filed by six former child slaves from Mali who sought to hold the cocoa importers liable for their captivity and mistreatment on farms in neighboring Ivory Coast.

The ruling on Tuesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco held that allegations the companies aided and abetted slave labor wasn’t an improper extraterritorial application of the Alien Tort Statute. A lower court judge had dismissed the case in March 2017.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Steve Stroth

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