Another working session held in AO lawsuit in France

Lawyers who are representing Vietnamese French Agent Orange victim Tran To Nga in the lawsuit against 26 US chemical companies said the defendant side continued to make irrational request in order to prolong the case.

Talking to Vietnam News Agency correspondents in Paris after the latest working session with judges and defendant lawyers at the Ervy Court on October 15, lawyers Amelie Lefebvre and Bertrand Repolt from the Paris-based William Bourdon Forestier law firm said that the defendant lawyers once again asked for documents proving that she used to work at dioxin-sprayed areas such as working contracts or paycheck receipts and evidence proving the linkage between herbicides and her diseases.

Lawyers Amelie Lefebvre and Bertrand Repolt in an interview given to VNA reporter after the working session on October 15th.

Repolt said those are unreasonable requirements at this stage of the trial, as hearings are yet to begin. In addition, the demand for the payroll of those who worked during wartime 40 – 50 years ago is also unrealistic.

Regarding the accuracy of translated documents, Lefebvre said that the inaccurate translation of several words is unavoidable in hundreds, or even thousands of pages of the documents, but such mistakes cannot render the entire documents incomprehensible.

The lawyers also informed that the plaintiff is expected to undergo new medical tests at a clinic appointed by the court.

At the meeting, the judge also announced that a deadline will be set soon for US companies’ representatives to respond to plaintiff lawyers’ conclusions in the lawsuits. The two parties’ lawyers will meet again on December 3 on the timetable for hearing sessions.

In May 2014, Vietnamese-French Tran Thi To Nga, born in 1942, filed a lawsuit against 26 US chemical firms for producing chemical toxins sprayed by the US army in the war in Vietnam, causing serious consequences for the community, her children and herself.

The complaint and related documents were filed to the Crown Court of Evry city in the suburb of Paris.

Tran To Nga graduated from a Hanoi university in 1966 and became a war correspondent of the Liberation News Agency, now the Vietnam News Agency. She worked in some of the most heavily AO/Dioxin affected areas in southern Vietnam such as Cu Chi, Ben Cat and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, ultimately experiencing contamination effects herself.

Among her three children, the first child died of heart defects and the second suffers from a blood disease.

In 2009, Nga, who contracted a number of acute diseases, appeared as a witness at the Court of Public Opinion in Paris, France against the US chemical companies.

From 1961-1971, US troops sprayed more than 80 million litres of herbicides—44 million litres of which were AO, containing nearly 370 kilograms of dioxin—over southern Vietnam.

As a result, around 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to the toxic chemical. Many of the victims have died, while millions of their descendants are living with deformities and diseases as a direct result of the chemical’s effects.