Gulliver

Founded in 1992, Barchester Healthcare has quickly become one of the UK’s “Big Four”, the four largest for-profit care home providers. Over the years, the company has come under repeated scrutiny for providing sub-standard living conditions for its residents, with numerous Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections rating Barchester homes as inadequate. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the care giant was criticized for a number of reasons, amongst them 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.

Bayer is a chemical and pharmaceutical company that was founded in 1863. Recently it expanded into agricultural products via the acquisition of Monsanto. One of the first controversial products made by Bayer was heroin (named and trademarked in 1898). Monsanto's list of controversial products include Agent Orange, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), genetically-modified crop seeds, and Roundup (the trade name of a toxic glyphosate-based weedkiller. It is in the process of paying out billions of dollars to convince some 100,000 people to drop lawsuits over Roundup use.