Inside the legal case against 'Shein's £50 billion IPO'

Ecotextile Talks

This episode of Ecotextile Talks explores the legal challenge facing fast fashion company Shein as it considers listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

In the summer UK based charity, Stop Uyghur Genocide, asked the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to reject any potential request from Shein to list on the LSE.

At the moment, we don't know for sure whether Shein has submitted a request to the FCA so as we all wait, we thought that it would helpful for a lawyer to take us inside the legal case against Shein's listing on the London Stock Exchange.

Not just any lawyer, but the one representing Stop Uyghur Genocide, Ricardo Gama from the UK law firm Leigh Day.

We discuss:

1. The legal basis for opposing Shein's potential listing, focusing on the UK Modern Slavery Act and the Proceeds of Crime Act.
2. How these laws could apply to Shein's operations, even though the company produces goods outside the UK.
3. The alleged evidence presented to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regarding forced labor in the Uyghur region and its alleged connection to Shein's supply chain.
4. Shein's response to the allegations and correspondence from Leigh Day
5. The potential next steps in the legal process, including the possibility of a judicial review if the Financial Conduct Authority approves any potential Shein's listing.

In the interests of balance and journalistic integrity, we emailed Shein on 25th September to give it an opportunity to respond to the allegations being made in this podcast by Leigh Day, on behalf of Stop Uyghur Genocide, in particular that its supply chain allegedly features forced labour, and the consequential handling of criminal property in breach of the UK Proceeds of Crime Act.

We asked Shein for either a recorded interview to include at the end of this podcast, or a written statement but as of September 30th no one from Shein had replied.

In the podcast we also invited Shein to record a follow-up podcast with us, to respond to the content of this one.

If you would like to read more about the, "NCA and its failure to investigate imports linked to forced labour - see this Guardian article

If you're interested in this issue, then you might like to listen to another recent edition of Ecotextile Talks entitled: "Can we trust textile factory audits in China?" which has an interview with the Executive Director of the Worker Rights Consortium, Scott Nova.