What a year for corporate criminality and malfeasance!





As we compiled the Multinational Monitor list of the 10 Worst Corporations of 2008, it would have been easy to restrict the awardees to Wall Street firms.





But the rest of the corporate sector was not on good behavior during

2008 either, and we didn't want them to escape justified scrutiny.





So, in keeping with our tradition of highlighting diverse forms of

corporate wrongdoing, we included only one financial company on the 10

Worst list.





Here, presented in alphabetical order, are the 10 Worst Corporations of 2008.





AIG: Money for Nothing





There's surely no one party responsible for the ongoing global

financial crisis. But if you had to pick a single responsible

corporation, there's a very strong case to make for American

International Group (AIG), which has already sucked up more than $150

billion in taxpayer supports. Through "credit default swaps," AIG

basically collected insurance premiums while making the ridiculous

assumption that it would never pay out on a failure -- let alone a

collapse of the entire market it was insuring. When reality set in, the

roof caved in.



Cargill: Food Profiteers





When food prices spiked in late 2007 and through the beginning of 2008,

countries and poor consumers found themselves at the mercy of the

global market and the giant trading companies that dominate it. As

hunger rose and food riots broke out around the world, Cargill saw

profits soar, tallying more than $1 billion in the second quarter of

2008 alone.





In a competitive market, would a grain-trading middleman make

super-profits? Or would rising prices crimp the middleman's profit

margin? Well, the global grain trade is not competitive, and the legal

rules of the global economy-- devised at the behest of Cargill and

friends -- ensure that poor countries will be dependent on, and at the

mercy of, the global grain traders.



Chevron: "We can't let little countries screw around with big companies"





In 2001, Chevron swallowed up Texaco. It was happy to absorb the

revenue streams. It has been less willing to take responsibility for

Texaco's ecological and human rights abuses.





In 1993, 30,000 indigenous Ecuadorians filed a class action suit in

U.S. courts, alleging that Texaco over a 20-year period had poisoned

the land where they live and the waterways on which they rely, allowing

billions of gallons of oil to spill and leaving hundreds of waste pits

unlined and uncovered. Chevron had the case thrown out of U.S. courts,

on the grounds that it should be litigated in Ecuador, closer to where

the alleged harms occurred. But now the case is going badly for Chevron

in Ecuador -- Chevron may be liable for more than $7 billion. So, the

company is lobbying the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to

impose trade sanctions on Ecuador if the Ecuadorian government does not

make the case go away.





"We can't let little countries screw around with big companies like

this -- companies that have made big investments around the world," a

Chevron lobbyist said to Newsweek in August. (Chevron subsequently

stated that the comments were not approved.)



Constellation Energy: Nuclear Operators





Although it is too dangerous, too expensive and too centralized to make

sense as an energy source, nuclear power won't go away, thanks to

equipment makers and utilities that find ways to make the public pay

and pay.





Constellation Energy Group, the operator of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear

plant in Maryland -- a company recently involved in a startling,

partially derailed scheme to price gouge Maryland consumers -- plans to

build a new reactor at Calvert Cliffs, potentially the first new

reactor built in the United States since the near-meltdown at Three

Mile Island in 1979.





It has lined up to take advantage of U.S. government-guaranteed loans

for new nuclear construction, available under the terms of the 2005

Energy Act. The company acknowledges it could not proceed with

construction without the government guarantee.



CNPC: Fueling Violence in Darfur





Sudan has been able to laugh off existing and threatened sanctions for

the slaughter it has perpetrated in Darfur because of the huge support

it receives from China, channeled above all through the Sudanese

relationship with the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).





"The relationship between CNPC and Sudan is symbiotic," notes the

Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights First, in a March 2008 report,

"Investing in Tragedy." "Not only is CNPC the largest investor in the

Sudanese oil sector, but Sudan is CNPC's largest market for overseas

investment."





Oil money has fueled violence in Darfur. "The profitability of Sudan's

oil sector has developed in close chronological step with the violence

in Darfur," notes Human Rights First.



Dole: The Sour Taste of Pineapple





A 1988 Filipino land reform effort has proven a fraud. Plantation

owners helped draft the law and invented ways to circumvent its

purported purpose. Dole pineapple workers are among those paying the

price.





Under the land reform, Dole's land was divided among its workers and

others who had claims on the land prior to the pineapple giant.

However, wealthy landlords maneuvered to gain control of the labor

cooperatives the workers were required to form, Washington, D.C.-based

International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) explains in an October report.

Dole has slashed it regular workforce and replaced them with contract

workers.





Contract workers are paid under a quota system, and earn about $1.85 a day, according to ILRF.



GE: Creative Accounting





In June, former New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston reported on

internal General Electric documents that appeared to show the company

had engaged in a long-running effort to evade taxes in Brazil. In a

lengthy report in Tax Notes International, Johnston reported on a GE

subsidiary's scheme to invoice suspiciously high sales volume for

lighting equipment in lightly populated Amazon regions of the country.

These sales would avoid higher value added taxes (VAT) in urban states,

where sales would be expected to be greater.





Johnston wrote that the state-level VAT at issue, based on the internal

documents he reviewed, appeared to be less than $100 million. But, he

speculated, the overall scheme could have involved much more.





Johnston did not identify the source that gave him the internal GE

documents, but GE has alleged it was a former company attorney, Adriana

Koeck. GE fired Koeck in January 2007 for what it says were

"performance reasons."



Imperial Sugar: 14 Dead





On February 7, an explosion rocked the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port

Wentworth, Georgia, near Savannah. Days later, when the fire was

finally extinguished and search-and-rescue operations completed, the

horrible human toll was finally known: 14 dead, dozens badly burned and

injured.





As with almost every industrial disaster, it turns out the tragedy was

preventable. The cause was accumulated sugar dust, which like other

forms of dust, is highly combustible.





A month after the Port Wentworth explosion, Occupational Safety and

Health Administration (OSHA) inspectors investigated another Imperial

Sugar plant, in Gramercy, Louisiana. They found 1/4- to 2-inch

accumulations of dust on electrical wiring and machinery. They found as

much as 48-inch accumulations on workroom floors.





Imperial Sugar obviously knew of the conditions in its plants. It had

in fact taken some measures to clean up operations prior to the

explosion. The company brought in a new vice president to clean up

operations in November 2007, and he took some important measures to

improve conditions. But it wasn't enough. The vice president told a

Congressional committee that top-level management had told him to tone

down his demands for immediate action.



Philip Morris International: Unshackled





The old Philip Morris no longer exists. In March, the company formally

divided itself into two separate entities: Philip Morris USA, which

remains a part of the parent company Altria, and Philip Morris

International. Philip Morris USA sells Marlboro and other cigarettes in

the United States. Philip Morris International tramples the rest of the

world.





Philip Morris International has already signaled its initial plans to

subvert the most important policies to reduce smoking and the toll from

tobacco-related disease (now at 5 million lives a year). The company

has announced plans to inflict on the world an array of new products,

packages and marketing efforts. These are designed to undermine

smoke-free workplace rules, defeat tobacco taxes, segment markets with

specially flavored products, offer flavored cigarettes sure to appeal

to youth and overcome marketing restrictions.



Roche: "Saving lives is not our business"





The Swiss company Roche makes a range of HIV-related drugs. One of them

is enfuvirtid, sold under the brand-name Fuzeon. Fuzeon brought in $266

million to Roche in 2007, though sales are declining.





Roche charges $25,000 a year for Fuzeon. It does not offer a discount price for developing countries.





Like most industrialized countries, Korea maintains a form of price

controls -- the national health insurance program sets prices for

medicines. The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs listed

Fuzeon at $18,000 a year. Korea's per capita income is roughly half

that of the United States. Instead of providing Fuzeon, for a profit,

at Korea's listed level, Roche refuses to make the drug available in

Korea.





Korean activists report that the head of Roche Korea told them, "We are

not in business to save lives, but to make money. Saving lives is not

our business."

Originally posted on December 29, 2008, at:

http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/editorsblog/index.php?/archives/105-The-10-Worst-Corporations-of-2008.html#extended



Robert Weissman is managing director of the Multinational Monitor.



AMP Section Name: Financial Services, Insurance and Banking