What happens when tens of thousands of impoverished Africans sue one of Britain's biggest oil companies for sickening them with toxic waste?

In 2006, the British company Trafigura unloaded a ship full of untreated chemical slop at a household garbage dump in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Scores of people living nearby were diagnosed with poisoning, hundreds lost their livelihoods as trash-scavengers, and 17 died. Now, 30,000 residents are suing the oil trading company for exposing them to toxic sludge. The company paid for a clean-up and admitted to "neglecting its duty of care," but has denied responsibility for the poisonings. The trial starts this fall.

Al Jazeera chronicles this David-versus-Goliath tale of Britain's biggest-ever lawsuit in the first installment of Corporations on Trial, which covers five lawsuits that pit ordinary people against the world's most powerful and wealthy corporations.

The other shows are just as compelling: Yesterday, the program aired the story of why Native American villagers in Alaska are suing Exxon Mobil. Next week, learn why 40,000 Indonesians who fled their homes after a volcanic eruption blame a gas company for their troubles.

Pigs in a crowded sty in Wieckowice, Poland. Photo: Wojciech Grzedzinski for The International Herald Tribune. visionshare (flickr)

Pork is a staple of the Romanian diet, and the country has become one of the largest producers of pig products in Europe. But it's not necessarily Romanians who are profiting from the growing industry.

U.S. agribusiness giant Smithfield Foods has carved its way into Eastern Europe's pork market, tapping European Union farm subsidies to set up shop in countries like Poland and Romania. Since its arrival in 1999, the Virginia-based Fortune 500 company has swiftly become Romania's top pork producer.

Smithfield has upended traditional ways of doing farming in Romania, one of Europe's poorest countries. The New York Times reports that 90 percent of the country's small farmers have lost their jobs in the last six years. Many have been forced to leave home in search of construction jobs in other EU member states.

The impacts of Smithfield's empire can be tracked all the way to West Africa, where the company exports cheap pork scraps to markets in Liberia, Equatorial Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire. In these countries, frozen offal sells at half the price of local pork — a bargain for consumers that again comes at the expense of local farmers.

“My farm isn’t working,” said Cote d'Ivoire farmer Patrice Yao, who told the The New York Times that he owns 45 hogs compared to the 100 he had three years ago."The Europeans are sending all their cheap meat to our market."