The following is an excerpt from an article by the Social Justice Foundation: psmag.com

An October study examined the relationship between corporations’ lobbyist payments and their employee litigation records. The first finding was obvious: Companies that experience employee litigation spend way more on lobbyists ($970,000 a year) than companies that don’t ($180,000). And, the study explains, those companies are getting great value for the extra $790,000 they’re spending. By reviewing the 27,794 employee lawsuits filed between 2000 and 2014, the study’s authors found that court case outcomes were more favorable for companies that lobby versus those that don’t. Or, as the abstract put it, the case results show “the benefit of building political capital to obtain biased outcomes in favor of politically connected firms.” (These findings were replicated in a 2011 study of the Chinese system that concluded “politically connected defendants … have higher stock returns and are more likely to appeal against adverse outcomes and to obtain a favorable appeal result.”)

The full abstract from the original study: