Federal Court Dismisses Abdulaziz Lawsuit, Rules McKinsey Had No Duty to Protect Dissident

A federal court grants McKinsey & Company’s motion to dismiss Omar Abdulaziz’s lawsuit for failure to state a claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), ruling that the consulting firm had no legal duty to protect the Saudi dissident’s identity when it produced a report naming him among top critics of the Saudi government. The Second Circuit affirms the dismissal, with the ruling stating: ‘Other than the foreseeability of risk, Abdulaziz provides no reason why sharing the report was itself a breach of a cognizable duty of care running from McKinsey to Abdulaziz.’ The decision effectively shields consulting firms from liability when their analytical work on dissidents is weaponized by authoritarian clients, even when severe consequences including torture and assassination attempts are highly foreseeable. The court’s narrow interpretation of duty of care ignores the reality that McKinsey’s identification of regime critics to a firm with extensive Saudi government connections creates obvious and grave dangers. The dismissal sends a chilling message that Western consulting firms face no legal accountability for providing intelligence on dissidents to repressive regimes, as long as the information is technically derived from public sources and the firm can claim the work was ‘internal.’ The ruling comes despite documented evidence that after McKinsey’s report, Abdulaziz’s family members were imprisoned and tortured, with his younger brother having teeth pulled out and others waterboarded and electrocuted. The case establishes a troubling legal precedent that consulting firms can claim plausible deniability about how authoritarian clients will use dissident intelligence, with no duty to protect those identified from foreseeable harm.