OREANDA-NEWS. On 24 April 2013, in Dacca, Bangladesh, the collapse of a building that housed a number of garment-manufacturing workshops resulted in the death of 1,135 male and female workers, and left 1,800 people injured. 3 weeks after this tragedy occurred, a pair of children’s trousers carrying the company’s "In Extenso" branding was discovered in the rubble, even though Auchan had never placed an order with any of these workshops.

Groupe Auchan, which had been a stakeholder in the Bangladeshi economy for more than 15 years, quickly took a number of decisive measures:

  • it conducted an investigation on the ground, although this yielded no tangible proof of what had really happened (malicious intent? illegal subcontracting?...) regarding its product;
  • it announced that it would continue to do business in the country;
  • it signed up to the Fire and Building Safety Agreement, an international agreement initiated by several international trade unions;
  • it put in place an 8-point plan to combat opaque subcontracting and corruption, the  initial results of which were announced in early April;
  • in the summer of 2014, it showed its solidarity with the victims by donating 1.5 million dollars to the Rana Plaza Donor’s Trust Fund, in the wake of the appeal launched by the ILO, the OECD and 8 European Ministers of the Economy.

In April 2014, 3 associations lodged a complaint with the Lille Court, attacking Groupe Auchan’s positioning as a “Responsible Discounter”, which they claimed was at odds with the company’s behaviour in the wake of the Rana Plaza drama, and more broadly, with its import policies in general.

Following an in-depth investigation by the Criminal Investigation Department, the Lille public prosecutor has just issued his ruling, dismissing the NGOs’ complaint on the grounds that there was no case to answer.

This decision vindicates Auchan’s commitment to developing responsible purchasing policies. Groupe Auchan remains determined to pursue these policies, so that it can help, at its level, to improve the working conditions of employees at the factories where its products are made, in all of the countries from which it imports goods.