Corporations take ethics very lightly and most get away with "murder"

Corporations carry out some of the most horrific ethics and human rights abuses of modern times, but it is increasingly difficult to hold them to account. Economic globalization and the rise of transnational corporate power have created a favorable climate for corporate human rights abusers, which are governed principally by the codes of supply and demand and show genuine loyalty only to their stockholders.

World’s worst corporate abuses includes issues as diverse as assassination, torture, kidnapping, environmental degradation, huge political campaign donations, violently repressing political rights, releasing toxins into pristine environments, destroying homes, discrimination, and causing widespread health problems.

Only very few corporate ethics abuses have resulted in these companies being forced to close down. In most cases they usually pay their way out of their problems and often their top management also usually gets off scot free and many even still stay in charge of their corporations

Global Exchange recently put out a list of "most wanted Corporate Criminals gives you information about the abusive behavior of this year’s worst corporations, and tells you who is responsible, and how to connect with and support people who are doing something about it.

The List

1. Bank of America for funding of environmentally harmful coal industry, excessive campaign contributions

2. Chevron for damaging ecosystem and people of Ecuador, repression of protest to oil extraction, Brazil spill

3. Century International Arms for producing Romanian AKs, which are frequently smuggled into Mexico

4. Halliburton for hydraulic fracturing, involvement in the Gulf spill, bribery in Nigeria

5. The Hershey Company for refusing to use fair trade labor and continuing to support labor that violates human rights standards

6. Monsanto for promotion of monocropping, involvement in government, refusing to label product, bankrupting small farms

7. Pacific Rim for mining in El Salvador

8. TransCanada for plans to construct Keyston XL Pipeline

9. Veolia for operations in Israel, high prices and bad service, privitization of water

10. Wal-Mart for unfair treatment of employees, use of sweatshop labor, bribery in Mexico

In more recent developments

British GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceutical company has agreed to pay $3 billion US in criminal and civil fines and plead guilty to misdemeanour criminal charges related to the sale and marketing of its antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin and the diabetes drug Avandia in the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history. 

US Federal regulators propose a $3.7 million civil penalty against the TransCanada owners of a pipeline that ruptured in 2010, dumping more than three billion litres of oil into a Michigan river.

Barclays Plc was fined 290 million pounds ($451.4 million), the largest penalties ever imposed by regulators in the U.S. and U.K., after admitting it submitted false London and euro interbank offered rates.


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