Gulliver

Inditex is the largest fashion retailer in the world, best known for its clothing brand Zara. Founded in 1975 by Ortega Amancio, Inditex has epitomized the age of cheap, disposable fashion - made in contract sweatshops and sold for throwaway prices in the West. In 2011, a government raid in Sao Paulo, Brazil, revealed that company contractors were using Bolivian immigrants working for 7-12 U.S. cents a piece. In 2017, workers at the Bravo Tekstil factory in Istanbul, Turkey, went into Zara stores to add tags to garments that read: “I made this item you are going to buy, but I didn’t get paid for it.”

Korian is a private medical care company that was founded by Charles Ruggieri, a steel and real estate tycoon in 2003. It owns over 1,000 elder care and nursing homes, in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. The company has come under the spotlight for a number of deaths that have taken place at its facilities. In early 2017, there was a flu outbreak at a Korian-owned nursing home in Lyon, France, that resulted in the deaths of 13 people and infected 70 percent of the residents. In April 2019, five residents of another Korian-owned nursing home in Lherm, France, died from food poisoning, and 20 further were hospitalized. And in 2020, nearly a third of residents at a Korian nursing home north of Cannes died from coronavirus.

L'Oreal is the world’s largest cosmetics company. Founded in 1909, it has been criticized for dubious marketing claims about its products. In 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned L’Oreal for claiming that some of its Lancome skin creams could “boost the activity of genes” or “stimulate cell regeneration” to reduce the appearance of aging. It has also come under fire from Black Lives Matter activists for racist advertising of products that promote the idea that white and fair skin is more beautiful than dark skin. In 2017 L'Oreal fired transgender model Munroe Bergdorf for speaking out against white supremacy, but re-hired her in 2020.

Lockheed Martin is the world's largest military contractor. It makes Hellfire missiles that have been used in numerous drone killings in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen. Founded in 1926, Lockheed has been charged with bribery in Egypt, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and (West) Germany to win contracts for military fighter jets and transport planes in the 1960s and the 1970s. These payments included $3 million to the Japanese prime minister and $1.1 million to a Dutch prince. In 2007 Lockheed was ordered to repay the U.S. government $265 million plus interest for over-billing on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and in 2010 it was ordered to repay the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy for over-billing on the C-27J tactical aircraft.