Dyson Lawsuit: Forced Labour Claims, Disclosure, and Settlement

In February 2026, Dyson settled a forced labor lawsuit brought in the English High Court by 24 migrant workers from Nepal and Bangladesh who said they were beaten, underpaid, and held in exploitative conditions at Malaysian factories that manufactured components for Dyson products. The company denied liability, the settlement figure was not disclosed, and the case is considered a landmark because English courts confirmed they could hear claims about abuses in a UK-headquartered multinational’s overseas supply chain.¹

What the Workers Said Happened

The lead claimant was Dhan Kumar Limbu. He and 23 others, including the representative of a worker who had died, were employed between 2011 and 2022 at factories in Johor Bahru operated by ATA Industrial (M) Sdn Bhd, since renamed WaveFront Berhad, and by a second supplier, Jabco Filter System Sdn Bhd. Both made components for Dyson.²³

Workers said their passports were taken from them when they arrived in Malaysia. Many had already paid heavy recruitment fees to brokers at home, leaving them in debt bondage before their first shift.⁴ Shifts of 12 hours or more were routine, sometimes without toilet breaks, at wages below the legal minimum.¹ Some described 18-hour days seven days a week, with annual leave refused; a few said they had worked every day for 18 months straight. Refusing overtime meant losing the right to work it in future, cutting off extra earnings. Accommodation was overcrowded and unsanitary, and movement was restricted.

The physical violence allegations were the sharpest. Limbu said he was arrested, interrogated, and beaten by Malaysian police after he tried to expose conditions to Andy Hall, an independent migrant rights specialist, and that a senior ATA executive threatened him with life imprisonment if he did not sign a false confession retracting his claims. The Dyson defendants later accepted Limbu’s account of the working conditions and did not contest his description of the police abuse, according to court filings.⁵⁴

What Dyson Knew, and When

The claimants said Dyson had known of unlawful conditions at ATA since at least November 2019. Andy Hall said he raised concerns with Dyson’s global sustainability team in London more than five years before the settlement, and that evidence gathered from a wave of worker complaints between 2019 and 2021 was sent to Dyson in early 2021.³⁴

Dyson conducted six audits of ATA Industrial between November 2019 and June 2021. The final one, by the UK firm ELEVATE, identified what Dyson acknowledged were “major issues relating to forced labour.” In November 2021, Dyson terminated the relationship, citing the audit findings and a whistleblower report alleging unacceptable actions by ATA staff including a senior executive.⁴³

Dyson’s position was that it had looked into abuse claims in 2019, found them “not substantiated,” and disputed knowledge of wrongdoing after that. When the suit was filed in 2022, the company said it was “previously unaware of the alleged abuses” and that the Malaysian supplier should be held responsible. Throughout the litigation Dyson denied controlling the third-party factories, denied owing a duty of care to the workers, and argued that former ATA employees should look to ATA for redress.⁶¹

Andy Hall called the decision to cut ties with ATA rather than remediate conditions “irresponsible” and “unethical,” and a breach of international standards, arguing it left thousands of victims without remedy.³ U.S. Customs and Border Protection also opened an investigation into the factory.⁴

Why the Case Was Heard in England

The workers, represented by the London firm Leigh Day, filed in England. Dyson argued that Malaysia was the proper forum since the alleged abuses happened there. At the High Court, Judge Clive Sheldon KC agreed with Dyson.²

The Court of Appeal unanimously reversed that ruling on December 13, 2024. Lord Justice Popplewell wrote that domicile in England “connotes a degree of permanence and allegiance to the country’s institutions” that makes it reasonable for a company to face claims there absent strong countervailing factors. The court found that Dyson’s UK operations were at the “centre of management control” for the whole group, that the English companies were the “principal protagonist” while the Malaysian subsidiary was “a more minor and ancillary defendant” added only after Dyson’s own solicitors suggested it, and that most relevant documents about supply chain policies sat at UK headquarters. Five claimants also faced deportation risks if forced to testify in Malaysia but could safely attend proceedings in England.⁷

Dyson sought permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court. On May 1, 2025, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Leggatt, and Lady Simler refused, saying the application “does not raise a point of law of general public importance.” That closed the jurisdictional dispute.²⁸ Leigh Day noted it was the first jurisdiction challenge of its kind decided after Brexit.⁹

Why This Case Reaches Further Than Earlier Ones

Previous Supreme Court decisions involving Vedanta Resources and Royal Dutch Shell had allowed parent companies to be sued in England for the operations of their subsidiaries where sufficient control was shown. Those were parent-subsidiary cases. Limbu v Dyson tested whether the same reach applied to a commercial supply chain relationship with an independent third-party manufacturer.¹⁰

The claimants argued Dyson owed them a duty of care because it exerted a high degree of control over operations and working conditions at the Malaysian factories, issued mandatory policies about worker conditions, and then failed to ensure those policies were followed.¹¹ They also brought an unjust enrichment claim, contending that Dyson had benefited financially from the exploitative conditions through reduced production costs, a theory commentators described as “strategically novel” in supply chain litigation.¹⁰

Because the case settled, the English courts never ruled on whether a duty of care actually existed on these facts or whether the unjust enrichment theory would succeed. The jurisdictional ruling, however, stands, and makes it harder for UK-headquartered companies to deflect similar claims to foreign courts.⁸

The January 2026 Disclosure Ruling

On January 14, 2026, Mr. Justice Pepperall issued a case management ruling that set the case up for trial in April 2027. He rejected Dyson’s proposal to resolve threshold liability questions on “assumed facts,” calling such shortcuts a “siren song,” and ordered that a representative sample of lead claimants, tentatively around six, would need to prove their working conditions at trial.¹²¹³

The most consequential part of the order was on disclosure. Justice Pepperall required Dyson to produce five categories of internal documents early, drawing on material that had come to light through related defamation proceedings Dyson had brought against Channel 4 News. The categories included minutes of meetings between Dyson and ATA, audit reports, correspondence from Dyson’s Chief Legal Officer to ATA, and records of Dyson’s pre-approvals and requests for ATA workers to work on rest days. The judge emphasized the “asymmetry of information between the parties”: the workers had almost no access to documentation of what Dyson knew and when, while Dyson held all of it.¹²¹⁴

Leigh Day had also told the court in December 2025 that 70 to 100 additional workers had potentially valid claims and were expected to file in early 2026. Justice Pepperall said the existing case should not be “blown off course” by new claimants but left the door open to future consolidation.⁶¹⁵

The Settlement and What It Left Open

Six weeks after the disclosure ruling, on February 27, 2026, Dyson and Leigh Day announced a settlement covering all 24 claimants. Their joint statement said the resolution was reached “in recognition of the expenses of litigation and the benefits of settlement.” The amount was not disclosed, the terms are confidential, and Dyson did not admit liability.¹¹⁶

The timing drew notice. The settlement came after the High Court had ordered Dyson to produce internal documents about its oversight of the Malaysian factories, and before the discovery process would have exposed the full scope of that documentation. Commentators observed that settling allowed Dyson to avoid trial and the production of meeting minutes, audit reports, and correspondence detailing what the company knew about conditions at ATA.¹⁷

Andy Hall called the settlement a “landmark legal precedent” but criticized its narrow reach, saying it covered only 24 of what he described as thousands of victims of forced labor at the ATA factories. He called on Dyson to establish a compensation fund for the workers not included in the settlement and to make responsible business conduct a core part of future operations. Hall also condemned what he called Dyson’s efforts to suppress media coverage, pointing to the company’s libel prosecution of Channel 4 News and threats against other outlets.³ No public statements from James Dyson or other senior executives personally addressing the allegations have been reported; the company’s position throughout was communicated through formal legal filings and corporate spokespeople.⁶

The settlement resolved the claims of the original 24 workers only. As of January 2026, Leigh Day had identified up to 100 additional potential claimants who could file similar claims, and the jurisdictional precedent set by the Court of Appeal remains in place regardless of the settlement.⁶

1
BBC News. Dyson Settles Forced Labour Lawsuit With Migrant Workers
2
UK Supreme Court. Limbu and Others v Dyson Technology Limited and Others
3
Andy J Hall. Comment on Dyson ATA Malaysia Landmark Forced Labour Case Settlement Announcement
4
HSCentre. Dyson Accused of Allowing Forced Labour at Malaysian Manufacturer ATA IMS
5
UK Judiciary. Limbu and Others v Dyson Technology
6
Andy J Hall. UK High Court Rules That Forced Labour and Exploitation Claims Against Dyson Will Be Tried Next Year
7
UK Judiciary. Limbu v Dyson Judgment
8
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. UK Supreme Court Dismisses Dyson’s Application to Appeal Over Migrant Workers Lawsuit
9
Leigh Day. Dhan Kumar Limbu and Others v Dyson Technology Limited, Dyson Limited and Dyson Manufacturing Sdn Bhd
10
Mishcon de Reya. Responsibility Without Liability: The Dyson Settlement and Why It Matters for UK Business and Human Rights
11
Clifford Chance. UK Court Confirms Forced Labour Claims Can Proceed in England
12
Clifford Chance. Case Management in Litigation Alleging Worker Abuse in Supply Chains: Key Takeaways From Limbu v Dyson
13
ICLR. Limbu and Others v Dyson Technology Limited and Others
14
GAVC Law. Limbu v Dyson Continued: The High Court Emphasises Relevance of Early Disclosure
15
Clifford Chance. Case Management in Litigation Alleging Worker Abuse in Supply Chains
16
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. UK: Dyson Reaches Settlement Agreement With Workers
17
Evidencity. Dyson and Rubicon Case Reset the Rules