Gulliver

Balchem is a chemical manufacturer that makes health and nutrition products for animal and humans. It was founded in 1967 and is headquartered in New Hampton, New York. One of its biggest subsidiaries is BCP Ingredients, which manufactures ethylene oxide, used in medical equipment sterilization, and choline chloride, which is used in animal feed for chickens and cows. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) estimates that the excess lifetime cancer risk from ethylene oxide emissions at the BCP Ingredients’ plant in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, located in ‘Cancer Alley,' an 85 mile stretch of the Mississippi river in Louisiana with over 150 toxic petrochemical plants, was 47 times higher than acceptable limits. The excess lifetime cancer risk from the company’s ethylene oxide plant in Verona, Missouri, was 27 times greater than the EPA’s stated acceptable limit.

Banco Santander is a multinational financial services company that was founded in 1857. It was sued by 34 U.S. states over it’s automobile loans that involved high interest rates and prolonged repayment plans. Some 82 percent of these borrowers were considered sub-prime of whom roughly half defaulted. Despite these high default rates, the bank made a profit by borrowing at low interest rates and then re-selling the loans on the secondary market. In 2020, the bank paid the U.S. government $550 million to have the lawsuits dropped.

Barchester Healthcare is one of the UK’s “Big Four” for-profit care home providers. Founded in 1992, it has come under repeated scrutiny for providing sub-standard living conditions for its residents by the UK Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was criticized for its secrecy regarding COVID-19 death numbers at its homes. 

BASF is the world's largest producer of chemicals.* Founded in 1865 by Friedrich Englehorn and headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany, the company mainly sells industrial grade chemicals to the automotive, construction, and pharmaceutical industries. In 1925, BASF led a merger with five other companies (including Bayer and Hoechst) to create I.G. Farbenindustrie AG which manufactured chemicals and weapons for the Nazi war effort during World War II. Its most infamous product was Zyklon B, which was used by the Nazis to kill millions in the gas chambers. After the war, IG Farben was broken up and BASF was reconstituted.