TotalEnergies Lawsuit in Uganda: French, EACJ, and UK Cases

TotalEnergies is facing overlapping lawsuits in France, the United Kingdom, and regional African courts over its Tilenga oilfield and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Uganda and Tanzania. The core case, brought by Ugandan community members and civil society groups in Paris, seeks financial compensation under France’s 2017 Duty of Vigilance Law and is expected to be heard on the merits in 2026 after a French court ordered TotalEnergies to disclose key internal documents in September 2025.¹

The Projects Behind the Litigation

Tilenga involves drilling roughly 400 oil wells across Uganda’s Buliisa and Nwoya districts, with some wells inside Murchison Falls National Park. The linked EACOP is a 1,443-kilometer heated pipeline carrying crude from Uganda’s Lake Albert region to the Tanzanian port of Tanga.² TotalEnergies holds a 62% stake in the pipeline, alongside the Uganda National Oil Company (15%), the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (15%), and CNOOC (8%).³ The combined investment has been estimated at around $10 billion.⁴

Uganda’s environmental authority approved the project in November 2020, and a construction license followed in January 2023.⁵ By mid-2026 construction was roughly 82% complete, with first oil exports targeted for late 2026.⁶

What the Lawsuits Allege

Plaintiffs and independent investigators describe a pattern of displacement, delayed compensation, environmental damage, and reprisals against critics. Human Rights Watch reported in 2023 that the developments are projected to displace more than 100,000 people and that families have endured years-long delays in compensation, leading to household debt, food insecurity, and children dropping out of school.⁷ A 2025 joint communication from UN Special Rapporteurs estimated that over 14,000 households face land dispossession and forced eviction.⁸

Residents have reported being pressured into signing compensation agreements written in English, a language many could not read.⁷ Construction of the Tilenga central processing plant has been linked to flooding of agricultural land since 2022, with floodwater alleged to be polluted.⁹

Reprisals against critics feature heavily in the record. A 2024 FIDH report documented at least 96 arrests of activists between May and early December of that year, alongside surveillance, smear campaigns, and cases of sexual exploitation by military and company personnel near project sites.¹⁰ UN experts described “unnecessary and disproportionate force” against protesters, including baton beatings and prolonged detention, and noted allegations that some detained people were coerced into surrendering land claims in exchange for the withdrawal of criminal charges.⁸

The French Cases Under the Duty of Vigilance Law

France’s 2017 Duty of Vigilance Law requires large French companies to publish and implement plans identifying and preventing human rights and environmental risks across their global operations, including those of subsidiaries and established business partners. The TotalEnergies litigation has produced two French cases.

The 2019 Vigilance Plan Case

Six French and Ugandan groups, including Friends of the Earth France and Survie, filed the first suit in 2019 through a fast-track procedure, arguing TotalEnergies had failed to comply with the vigilance law.¹¹ On February 28, 2023, the Paris Civil Court dismissed the case, ruling the claims inadmissible because the 2019 court submissions were “substantially different” from the plaintiffs’ initial legal notification, a procedural requirement under the law.¹² The court also found the dispute too complex for emergency proceedings. An appeal is pending.¹

The 2023 Compensation Lawsuit

On June 27, 2023, a broader lawsuit was filed in Paris by 26 members of affected communities, Ugandan human rights defender Maxwell Atuhura (director of the TASHA Research Institute), and five civil society organizations: AFIEGO, Friends of the Earth France, NAPE/Friends of the Earth Uganda, Survie, and TASHA.¹³ Atuhura has faced repeated arbitrary detentions and threats and testified before the French Senate in 2024 about intimidation tactics used against project opponents.¹⁴

Where the earlier case sought to force TotalEnergies to revise its vigilance plan, this one asks for financial compensation for harms already suffered. Plaintiffs allege the company failed to identify risks in its vigilance plan, failed to act on warnings, and failed to implement corrective measures once violations occurred. Specific claims include deprivation of land for three to four years without prior compensation, food shortages from lost farmland, flooding caused by construction, and the arrest and harassment of community members who spoke out.¹³ France 24 reported that the projects have affected over 118,000 people whose land was wholly or partially expropriated.¹⁵

The September 2025 Disclosure Order

After plaintiffs accused TotalEnergies of withholding internal records needed to prove liability, the Paris Civil Court ruled on September 18, 2025 that the company must disclose a range of evidence, including Ugandan government valuer reports, compensation studies prepared by contractors Atacama and Newplan, a 2021 flood study, and minutes from TotalEnergies’ internal Human Rights Steering Committee.¹ The court gave TotalEnergies one month to comply, with a €1,000 daily penalty for delay.¹⁶

The court rejected TotalEnergies’ argument that some documents belonged to its subsidiaries rather than the parent company, holding that because TotalEnergies’ vigilance plan covers subsidiary activities, the parent cannot use its corporate structure to avoid disclosing relevant evidence. The court did decline to order full internal audit reports, limiting disclosure to extracts directly relevant to the dispute.¹ A merits hearing is expected in 2026.¹³

The East African Court of Justice Case

Four civil society groups — AFIEGO, CEFROHT, Natural Justice (Kenya), and the Centre for Strategic Litigation (Tanzania) — filed a separate case at the East African Court of Justice challenging EACOP under regional law. The court’s First Instance Division dismissed the case on procedural grounds in November 2023, and the groups appealed.¹⁷

On November 26, 2025, the Appellate Division upheld the dismissal, ruling the case had been filed outside the 60-day time limit required by the EAC Treaty and that the court lacked jurisdiction. Justice Nestor Kayobera said “any sane person would adduce” from the timeline that the filing came too late. The appellate panel did overturn the earlier order requiring the civil society groups to pay the governments’ legal costs.¹⁸

Ugandan Court Rulings Against Affected Families

Inside Uganda, the courts have generally sided with the government and project developers. On December 8, 2023, the High Court in Hoima ruled for the government in a case against 42 households in Buliisa District after the Attorney General sought compulsory land acquisition for Tilenga. The court ordered compensation funds of roughly 946 million Ugandan shillings (about $252,000) for nearly 60 acres deposited with the court and granted the government “vacant possession” of the land. The families’ lawyers protested that the suit was filed just four days before the hearing, that valuations relied on outdated 2019 data, and that many families were not adequately notified.¹⁹ A subsequent challenge by some of the same landowners was rejected in April 2024, with an appeal still pending.²⁰

The Planned UK Lawsuit

A group of Ugandan farmers represented by the London firm Leigh Day is preparing to sue EACOP Ltd, the project’s UK-registered operating company, in British courts. Lawyers sent a pre-action letter in January 2026 and intended to file the formal claim by mid-2026.²¹ The claim relies on Ugandan domestic law rather than British statutes, arguing the pipeline violates the Ugandan Constitution’s guarantee of a clean and healthy environment as well as obligations under Uganda’s National Environment Act and National Climate Change Act.²² The effort is crowdfunded through donations from over 40,000 people, coordinated by the campaign group Avaaz.

What TotalEnergies Says

TotalEnergies has denied the allegations. The company says its subsidiaries respect community rights and biodiversity, that it conducted the required environmental and social impact assessments, and that it adheres to International Finance Corporation standards.⁹ It also states that its facilities inside Murchison Falls National Park will cover less than 0.03% of the park’s surface area during operations.²

Why the Outcome Matters

The TotalEnergies litigation is one of the most closely watched tests of France’s Duty of Vigilance Law, which since 2017 has produced roughly 30 formal notices and 13 lawsuits against major French corporations. The first conviction under the law came in 2023, when the Paris Judicial Tribunal found La Poste had failed to prevent the use of undocumented workers by subcontractors. In March 2026, the Yves Rocher Group became the first company ordered to pay compensation for damages caused by a foreign subsidiary’s activities under the law.²³

The September 2025 Paris ruling established that parent companies cannot deflect disclosure requests to their subsidiaries when the parent’s own vigilance plan covers those subsidiaries’ activities. A finding of liability at the 2026 merits hearing would be one of the most consequential applications of the law so far, potentially confirming that a French multinational owes financial compensation for human rights and environmental failures in its overseas operations.¹⁶ Construction, meanwhile, continues, with first oil exports targeted for late 2026.²⁴

1
Cambridge Business & Human Rights Journal Blog. Moving the Needle Reflecting on the Total Uganda Decision
2
TotalEnergies. Tilenga and EACOP Projects Acting Transparently Uganda Tanzania
3
Global Issues. Ugandan Farmers Prepare UK Lawsuit Against EACOP
4
Le Monde. European Parliament Slams Two TotalEnergies Oil Projects in Uganda
5
TotalEnergies Uganda. EACOP
6
Energy News Pro. The EACOP Pipeline Reaches 82 Completion With First Oil Targeted
7
Human Rights Watch. Uganda Oil Pipeline Project Impoverishes Thousands
8
United Nations OHCHR. Joint Communication AL OTH 33/2025
9
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. TotalEnergies Lawsuit Re Reparations of Damages Caused by Tilenga and EACOP Projects
10
FIDH. Heated: Human Rights Frontline Communities and Oil in Uganda
11
Reuters. French Court Rejects Lawsuit Brought Against TotalEnergies Uganda Pipeline
12
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. Total Lawsuit Re Failure to Respect French Duty of Vigilance Law in Operations in Uganda
13
Climate Case Chart. AFIEGO et al. v. Total
14
Friends of the Earth France. Intimidation in Uganda and Tanzania New Investigative Tool and Hearing of Maxwell Atuhura by the French Senate
15
France 24. Ugandans Sue TotalEnergies in France for Reparations Over Human Rights Violations
16
Friends of the Earth France. Victory French Court Orders Disclosure of Evidence in Total Uganda Case
17
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. Projet EACOP de TotalEnergies Les Opposants Espèrent un Dernier Sursaut Judiciaire à Kigali
18
AFIEGO. Press Statement EACOP Appeal Dismissed by EACJ Judges
19
Justice Info. Total Uganda 42 Families Expropriated Summary Trial
20
Drilled Media. Uganda Resettlement
21
Climate Change News. Ugandan Farmers Use British Court to Try to Stop Oil Pipeline
22
Gas Outlook. Ugandans Sue in UK to Halt EACOP Pipeline Project
23
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. Frances Duty of Vigilance Law
24
Pipeline Journal. First Oil Shipment EACOP Pipeline Begin October Officials Say