BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

State party is responsible for actions of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (FBC), in which the State holds a dominant stake (90 per cent) and which is placed under specific government control. The issue of responsibility of the State party for acts of a private company allegedly leading to violation of treaty rights was also raised in the case Love v. Australia . 42 The State party has argued that the acts in question (dismissals) were carried out by Australian Airlines (Quantas Airlines Limited), e.g. an incorporated company, and while the State party owned all shares in the company at the time of the dismissals; the Government did not intervene in its day-to-day administration. Since the Human Rights Committee concluded that the complainant did not suffer discrimination in violation of article 26 of the Covenant, it did not deem necessary to decide whether the act was directly imputable to the State party, or whether the State party’s responsibility would be engaged by a failure to prevent third party discrimination. The Committee on the Elimination of the Racial Discrimination (CERD Committee) examined potential discrimination in policy and practice of business enterprises. For instance, in the case Ziad Ben Ahmed Habassi v. Denmark, 43 the CERD Committee considered alleged violation of the Convention in connection with the refusal of a loan by the private bank Sparbank Vest because of nationality of the applicant. Concluding that nationality is not the most appropriate requisite when investigating a person’s will or capacity to reimburse a loan, the CERD Committee found it appropriate for the State party to initiate a proper investigation into the real reasons behind the bank’s loan policy in order to ascertain whether or not criteria involving racial discrimination are being applied. The Committee concluded that steps taken by the State party were insufficient and that the complainant was denied an effective remedy. The case Nicolai Hernansen, Signe Edrich and Jonna Vilstrup v. Denmark 44 has raised an issue of an alleged discrimination due to the policy by Thai Airways that offered an “ethic discount” to ethnic Thai travelling to Thailand. The communication was declared inadmissible rationne personae for lack of victim status of the petitioners. However, the company cancelled the discount scheme following the decision by the Complaint Committee for Ethnic Equal Treatment. The very first complaint considered by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee), Szilvia Nyusti and Péter Takács v. Hungary, 45 concerned the activities of a private bank, namely the OTP Bank Zrt. credit institution. The complainants who were persons with severe visual impairments concluded contracts with OTP, according to which they were entitled to use banking cards. However, they were unable to use the automatic teller machines (ATMs) without assistance, as the keyboards of the ATMs operated by OTP were not marked with Braille, nor do the ATMs provided audible instructions and voice assistance for banking card operations. While they paid annual fees for banking card services and transactions equal to the fees paid by other clients, they were unable to use the services provided by the ATMs at the same level as sighted clients. The CRPD Committee found violation of article 9,

42 Communication No. 983/2001, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/77/D/983/2001 (2003). 43 Communication No. 10/1997, CERD/C/54/D/10/1997, 6 April 1999. 44 Communication No. 44/2009, U.N. Doc. CERD/C/77/D/44/2009 (2010). 45 Communication No. 1/2010, CRPD/C/9/D/1/2010, 21 June 2013.

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