London | An EU move to water down or shelve a tough new law forcing companies to clean up their supply chains has drawn flak from mining boss Andrew Forrest and his daughter Grace, who fear it could undermine their campaign to beef up Australia’s own regime.

Last week, Germany and Italy led a clutch of EU countries who failed to back the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive – a bloc-wide law that would impose a legal liability on any medium-sized or large business to weed out forced labour and environmental issues in their supply chains.