CorpWatch Exclusives
 | Mehadrin "Jaffa" Oranges May Come from Occupied Palestinian Land by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog April 4th, 2013 Jaffa oranges sold in European supermarkets labeled "Made in Israel" may have been grown and packaged in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, according to a report from the Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) movement, an international coalition of Palestinian NGOs and activists. |
 | Boeing Helps Kill Proposed Law to Regulate Drones by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog March 30th, 2013 Boeing, the aircraft manufacturing giant from Seattle, helped defeat a Republican proposal in Washington state that would have forced government agencies to get approval to buy unmanned aerial vehicles, popularly known as drones, and to obtain a warrant before using them to conduct surveillance on individuals. |
 | Monsanto Bullies Small Farmers Over Planting Harvested GMO Seeds by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog March 24th, 2013 Does Monsanto own all future generations of genetically modified seeds that it sells? The Missouri-based agribusiness giant wants farmers to pay a royalty to plant any seed that descended from a patented original. The legal decision has ramifications for other patented "inventions" that reproduce themselves like strands of DNA. |
 | Wall Street Giants – JP Morgan and SAC – Hauled Up On Fraud Allegations by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog March 15th, 2013 JP Morgan - the Wall Street investment bank - and SAC - a major hedge fund - were hauled up Friday for alleged fraud. JP Morgan was questioned at a U.S. Senate hearing about hiding trading losses while SAC agreed to pay $614 million to settle insider trading charges. |
 | “Fat Cat” Laws Approved In Europe To Curb Excessive Corporate Pay by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog March 8th, 2013 Nearly 70 percent of Swiss voters approved a “fat cat” referendum that would prohibit “golden handshake” bonuses to departing corporate bosses while the European Union approved legislation limiting bankers executive bonuses to a maximum of one year’s salary, or twice that amount if a majority of shareholders approve. |
 | Sierra Leone Farmers Evicted for Sugarcane Biofuel Plantations by Jennifer Kennedy, CorpWatch Blog March 5th, 2013 Addax Bioenergy, a Swiss energy company, is jeopardizing the livelihoods of thousands of subsistence farmers in order to export ethanol made from sugarcane grown in Sierra Leone, according to the Sierra Leone Network on the Right to Food and Brot Für Alle, an NGO based in Switzerland. |
 | BP Goes on Trial for Deepwater Horizon Explosion by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog March 2nd, 2013 BP, the UK oil company, went on trial this week for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. The company could be fined up to $30 billion over the $25 billion it has promised if the court finds that it was "grossly negligent.” |
 | U.S. Prosecutors Build Case Against Steve Cohen, Hedge Fund Billionaire by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog February 24th, 2013 SAC Capital is one of the most profitable hedge funds in history with $15 billion in assets averaging 30 percent in annual profits for 20 years running. Today Wall Street is watching nervously as U.S. government lawyers work on a case against billionaire founder Steven Cohen for insider trading. |
 | Capita Bungles Deportation of Irregular Migrants in UK by Lily Smith, CorpWatch Blog February 18th, 2013 Capita, a UK outsourcing company, sent text messages to thousands of people in the UK, asking them to leave the country, as part of a privatized deportation scheme. Unfortunately hundreds of people that they targeted were in the country legally. |
 | 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. |