10.7.3 The COM in office

The COM issued its first public report in September 20 0 8.1 It reported on the meetings held in Bangalore, the finalisation of the terms of reference, the implementation of the Lubbers Mediation agreement, and on the complaints that it had received. The COM confirmed that FFI/JKPL had terminated all litigation against the Indian Organisations as well as against CCC/ICN and the Internet Service Providers and urged all parties 'to enter this information in their respective websites and to give wide publicity to it with utmost expedition.'2 The report did not record any complaints relating to the labour conditions at the FFI/JKPL factories, but it did register various complaints about errors on CCC's and other websites. The report, furthermore, discussed complaints regarding publications involving CCC/ICN which repeated the ' old' but unsubstantiated allegations of poor labour conditions at FFI/JKPL without providing information on the positive outcome of the Lubbers Mediation. The COM indicated that it had found the grievances about the errors on the CCC/ICN websites to be well founded and it had hence requested that corrections be made. Regarding another complaint concerning an article entitled Schmutzwäsche published in the Austrian magazine Profil Extra in May 2008, the COM had convened a meeting. The report stated that '[the article] is unjustifiably negative in character [about FFI/JKPL and G-Star]' and 'the COM having entered office, publication of the Article in PROFIL without first approaching and collecting correct information from him was against the spirit of ToR [Terms of Reference]'. To prevent further damage, the COM agreed with the parties that they would publish on their websites a joint statement to correct the false information contained in the article Schmutzwäsche.3