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 | Sweet Nothing: UK Food Giant Avoids Taxes on Zambia Sugar
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
February 15th, 2013
Associated British Foods (ABF), a UK company that makes Silver Spoon sugar, pays almost no taxes on its profitable Zambian sugar subsidiary, according to a new ActionAid report. The authors allege ABF has avoided estimated taxes of $27 million since 2007, enough to put 48,000 Zambian children in school. |
 | Medical Trial Data Activists Score Win Over Glaxo
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
February 7th, 2013
All data on completed medical experiments are to be made available to the general public by GlaxoSmithKline, the biggest UK pharmaceutical company. The announcement is a major win for the AllTrials campaign mounted by healthcare activists as well as researchers that has gathered widespread support. |
 | Tar Sands Activist Interrupts Texas Oil & Gas Conference
by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog
January 31st, 2013
A climate change activist locked himself to a projector screen at an oil and gas conference in Texas today interrupting a TransCanada executive who was making a presentation on a pipeline from Alberta to the U.S. Instead 300 astonished attendees heard an impassioned presentation about TransCanada’s poor safety record. |
 | Nestlé Found Guilty of Spying on Swiss Activists
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
January 30th, 2013
Nestlé, the world’s largest food company, has been found guilty of spying on Swiss activists in 2003 with the help of Securitas, a private security company. Jean-Luc Genillard, president of the Lausanne civil court, told the two companies to pay $3,267.55 to each of nine victims. |
 | Chevron Sues Its Own Shareholders In Ecuador Compensation Battle
by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog
January 24th, 2013
U.S. oil giant Chevron’s latest move in an epic legal battle waged against indigenous Ecuadorian villagers involves serving legal papers on journalists, a New York state government official, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, a host of environmental groups, and even its own shareholders. |
 | “Cyberazzi” – Data Mining Companies Investigated for Invasion of Privacy
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
January 21st, 2013
The paparazzi hide in bushes and use telephoto lenses to snap pictures of celebrities. The “cyberazzi” parachute into web browsers and sneak up behind mobile phones to spy on ordinary people. Nine such data mining companies must report what personal information they gather for sale by next week. |
 | Frackademia: How the Fracking Industry Tries To Bully Or Buy Scientists
by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog
January 18th, 2013
Range Resources, a Texas company, bullied the federal government into dropping a scientific report on environmental contamination caused by fracking, a new investigation has just revealed. This comes on the heels of two major pro-fracking academic reports that had to be withdrawn in 2012. |
 | Argentine Farm Sales Raise Questions of Land Speculation By Soros
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
January 15th, 2013
Hedge fund billionaire George Soros is making a killing buying and selling farmland in South America after converting them to biofuel production. While this has caused the land prices to increase dramatically, the ecological impact is questionable. |
 | Walmart Faces Increased Scrutiny Over Bangladesh Sweatshop Fire
by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog
January 7th, 2013
Walmart is coming under increased scrutiny for its ties to a garment factory in Dhaka where 112 workers were trapped and killed in a fire in late November 2012. The company, which buys $1 billion in clothing a year from Bangladesh, initially tried to deny any connection. |
 | South African Gold Miners Sue Over Deadly Lung Disease
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
January 3rd, 2013
Thousands of gold miners have asked permission from South African courts to sue some 30 mining companies over negligence in health and safety that the miners allege has caused them to contract silicosis, a debilitating and potentially fatal lung disease. |
 | Deadly Conflict Over Honduran Palm Oil Plantations Spotlights CEO
by Jennifer Kennedy, CorpWatch Blog
December 31st, 2012
Miguel Facussé, the owner of Dinant Corporation in the Honduras, has come under scrutiny for the human rights abuses against farmers in the Bajo Aguán valley, where his company is cashing in on a boom in palm oil demand, fueled by loans from major donors like the World Bank. |
 | H&M Targeted for Uzbek Cotton Allegedly Grown with Forced Labor
by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog
December 27th, 2012
Swedish company H&M, the world’s second-largest clothing retailer, is under pressure to cut ties with supplier South Korea-based Daewoo International and others that purchase cotton from Uzbekistan, where the government allegedly forces children and adults to harvest the white fiber for little or no pay. |
 | Global Ambulance Chasers: Lawyers Profit From Suing States for Multinationals
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
December 17th, 2012
Dozens of highly paid international lawyers are pocketing millions of dollars in fees from multinational corporations to sue governments in secretive “arbitration tribunals” for profits they claim to be owed under international investment treaties, according to “Profiting from Injustice,” a new report from Corporate Europe Observatory and Transnational Institute. |
 | Forever 21 Fails to Comply With Federal Sweatshop Investigation
by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog
November 30th, 2012
Clothing chain retailer Forever 21 has been sued by the U.S. government for ignoring a subpoena requesting information on how much the company’s suppliers pays the workers who make its clothes. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the salaries are well under the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. |
 | Smokeless Tobacco Lobbyists Set Off European Alarms
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
November 23rd, 2012
A clandestine lobbying effort at the European Union (EU) by Swedish Match company to get legislators to lift a ban on a special kind of smokeless tobacco has forced the resignation of a top European bureaucrat and prompted renewed calls to strengthen rules on undue business influence in Brussels. |
 | India’s Retail Sector: Ripe for the Picking
by Freny Manecksha, Special to CorpWatch
November 19th, 2012
A decision by the Indian government to allow foreign multinationals to invest in the country’s $500 billion retail market is expected to spell the death knell for thousands of small, family-owned shops and even threatens street hawkers, who have supplied local neighborhoods for generations. |
 | Contractors Alleged to Abuse Alcohol, Drugs, Guns at Parties In Afghanistan
by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog
November 14th, 2012
Jorge Scientific Corporation, a military contractor with nearly a billion dollars in U.S. government contracts, is being sued by former employees for “shocking misconduct” in Afghanistan. The charges include illegal and reckless use of firearms, abusing alcohol and drugs and billing the government for property destroyed during raucous parties. |
 | Indigenous Protestors Against Guatemala Energy Company Targeted
by Jennifer Kennedy, CorpWatch Blog
November 10th, 2012
Six demonstrators were killed and dozens injured when the Guatemalan military fired into a group of indigenous Maya-K'iche' gathered on the Inter-American highway to protest rising electricity charges from Energuate, a major national power company owned by a private equity firm created by the UK government. |
 | Agribusiness Buys California Votes
by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog
November 6th, 2012
Big corporations bankrolled candidates for the 2012 elections in both the Democratic and Republican parties and bought their votes lock, stock and barrel, contributing over $2 billion out of the $6 billion spent this year. The biggest impact was on a California battle to require labeling of genetically altered products. |
 | U.S. Sues Bank of America for $1 Billion in Bad Mortgages
by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog
October 29th, 2012
Federal prosecutors are suing Bank of America for selling fraudulent loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored mortgage finance companies. The government alleged that the multinational sold over $1 billion in bad mortgages that led to numerous foreclosures. |
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