Members of Britain’s richest family stand trial for exploiting their household staff

The trial, which ends on Friday, is taking place in Switzerland because it concerns events which took place at the residence of the Hinduja family in Cologny, near Geneva. As soon as they arrived, the domestic staff were deprived of their passports and had to cope with working days of 15 to 18 hours.

The richest family in the United Kingdom is on trial in Switzerland until Friday June 21. Multi-billionaires of Indian origin, the Hindujas run a conglomerate which employs 200,000 people around the world, in industry, finance, IT services, health and real estate. In the early 2000s their name was involved in a first scandal when one of the family members tried to bribe a minister to obtain British citizenship. This time two parents, their son and their daughter-in-law are accused of having, for more than 10 years, exploited their domestic staff in their residence in Cologny near Geneva. The procedure has been open since 2018. Their lawyers have increased their appeals to delay the trial.

They are accused precisely of having taken advantage of the vulnerability of those they recruited from the poorest classes of Indian society. As soon as they arrived in Switzerland, these handymen and women were deprived of passports. The pace of work is also pointed out with days of 15 to 18 hours, every day, to take care of the children and do the cleaning, in a villa from which they could not leave without authorization… except to return home in India once a year. All for less than 250 euros per month. As the prosecutor said at the start of the trial, among the Hinduja people, more money was spent on the dog than on the servants.

The Hinduja family completely denies the practice of modern slavery and its lawyers put it into perspective: “watch a film with the children”, It’s not really work. The parents, aged 75 and 78, remained in their property in Monaco for health reasons. But at the stand, former servants summoned as witnesses only say good things about these extremely wealthy and powerful employers, but also philanthropic and respectful, for whom the staff is a bit like family. Last week the Hindujas reached a financial settlement with their accusers, protected by a confidentiality clause, but that does not stop the trial from continuing. Their representatives accuse the courts of transforming a simple labor law case into a crusade against the very rich.

This is not the first time that Geneva has been the scene of this type of affair. Modern slavery is present in almost every country in the world, but in this city which is home to a phenomenal number of billionaires and international organizations, trials for mistreatment or forced labor are not uncommon. The more crises in the world multiply, the more the phenomenon spreads. In 2023, four Filipinas filed suit against a diplomatic mission to the United Nations after years of not being paid. In Hinduja’s case, the prosecutor requested five and a half years in prison against the parents, four and a half years against the son and his wife. Verdict Friday.