[Intl-tobacco] BAT among 10 Worst Corporations of 2000

[Robert Weissman]

Multinational Monitor annually names the 10 worst corporations of the
year. (The list has a U.S. bias.) BAT made the list this year, with its
revealed role in international smuggling highlighted. Below follows a news
release with an overview of the 10 worst, and then an excerpt from the
full 10 Worst story that includes the discussion on BAT.

You can see the full story at
<http://www.essential.org/monitor/mm2000/00december/enemies.html>.
Subscription information for Multinational Monitor is at
<http://www.essential.org/monitor/subscribe.html>

-- 
Robert Weissman	<rob@essential.org>
Essential Information
P.O. Box 19405, Washington, DC 20036, USA
Tel: 1-202-387-8030
Fax: 1-202-234-5176
www.essential.org


For Immediate Release

For more information, contact:
Robert Weissman, 202-387-8030
Russell Mokhiber, 202-737-1680
Charlie Cray, 202-387-8030

TEN WORST CORPORATIONS OF 2000 NAMED BY MULTINATIONAL MONITOR

British American Tobacco, Ford/Firestone, Glaxo Wellcome, Lockheed Martin
and Smithfield Foods were among the most socially irresponsible
corporations of 2000, according to the Top Ten list released annually by
Multinational Monitor magazine.

Other companies on the list are: Aventis, BP/Amoco, Phillips
Petroleum and Titan International.

"The nation is beset by an epidemic of corporate crime and misconduct,"
says Russell Mokhiber, editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter and a
co-author of Multinational Monitor's "Ten Worst Corporations of the Year."
"The ten worst corporations are just the tip of the iceberg."

"The 'Ten Worst Corporations of the Year' highlight in stark terms the
consequences of corporate power run amok," says Robert Weissman, editor of
Multinational Monitor and co-author of the ten worst story. "These include
despoilment of the natural environment, infliction of preventable disease,
smashing of unions, invasions of privacy, corruption of democracy, and
more."

The Multinational Monitor magazine is a Ralph Nader-founded monthly that
reports on the activities of multinational corporations. 2000 is the
thirteenth year the Monitor has released its Ten Worst Corporations of the
Year list.

The companies appearing on this year's list earned their spot for the
following reasons:

* Aventis: Contaminating the food supply (Taco Bell shells and more) with
genetically engineered crops not approved for human consumption;

* BAT: Promoting and facilitating cigarette smuggling on a massive scale
throughout the world;

* BP/Amoco: Multiple fines and payments for environmental violations and
failure to pay royalties to the federal government and Native Americans;

* Doubleclick: Rubbing against the edge of internet privacy protections;

* Ford/Firestone: Placing the lethal combination of Ford Explorers and
Firestone tires on the road, and not removing them when the companies
learned how dangerous the combination is;

* Lockheed Martin: Testing a toxic component of rocket fuel on humans;

* Philipps Petroleum: Operating a deadly petrochemical facility in Houston
-- a March explosion was the third fatal accident at the complex in the
last 11 years;

* Smithfield Foods: Consolidating the meat packing business to the
detriment of family farms, and spreading factory farms that are polluting
rural America; and

* Titan International: Ongoing strikebreaking attempt against
approximately 1,000 members of the United Steelworkers of America.


The full story, "The Ten Worst Corporations of the Year," is posted at
http://www.essential.org/monitor/mm2000/00december/enemies.html.

_______________________________________________

Excerpted from
"Enemies of the Future: The Ten Worst Corporations of 2000"
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Multinational Monitor, December 2000

      BAT: SMUGGLER OF DEATH

      One of the most effective ways to reduce smoking rates is to raise
the price of cigarettes.

      That's why the World Health Organization and health authorities
consider stiff excise taxes on cigarettes as among the most important
tobacco control measures a country can adopt.

      It is why the tobacco industry hates excise taxes.

      And, it appears from evidence made public this year, it is why the
tobacco industry has promoted and managed cigarette smuggling on a massive
scale throughout the world.

      According to internal company documents unearthed by the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a project of
the Center for Public Integrity, and the British group Action on Smoking
and Health (ASH UK), British American Tobacco (BAT) for decades engineered
a worldwide smuggling scheme, with extensive efforts in Latin America and
Asia. BAT, which owns the U.S. company Brown & Williamson, is the world's
second largest tobacco multinational, just behind Philip Morris. The
documents are among millions of company documents made public in
connection with the U.S. state litigation against the tobacco companies.

      As Clive Bates of ASH UK summarized in testimony before the British
House of Commons Health Select Committee, BAT undertook a comprehensive,
planned project to promote smuggling worldwide. Among the company's key
strategies, he testified:

      ¥ Adopting an approach to business planning and sales target setting
which treats the various routes for smuggling as near-normal distribution
channels which are under the same sort of control as legitimate channels;

      ¥ Deliberately establishing business relations with intermediaries
that directly or indirectly supply smugglers and directing these companies
so as to gain share in the illegal markets;

      ¥ Building warehouses and stationing marketing personnel close to
borders with poor customs controls;

      ¥ Using a small legal or duty-free market to justify advertising
campaigns which have the real purpose of stimulating demand for cigarettes
on sale in the illegal market (these are known as Ôumbrella operations');

      ¥ Organizing complicated movements of cigarettes through several
jurisdictions or multiple levels within an elaborate distribution chain -
leading to difficulties in tracing the products.

      Smuggling is not a "victimless" crime, Bates emphasized. "The lower
prices increase demand and improve the competitive position of the brand
and stimulate overall market demand - with knock-on health impacts due to
increased smoking." The ultimate result, he said, "is increased smoking,
and hence increased illness, especially in developing countries, among the
poor, and among children and adolescents."

      The BAT documents show high official awareness of and involvement in
the smuggling operations, with contraband cigarettes referred to by a
range of euphemisms, including DNP (duty not paid) and GT (general trade).
Here are some excerpts from the internal documents:

      ¥ "I am advised by Souza Cruz that the BAT Industries Chairman has
endorsed the approach that the Brazilian Operating Group increase its
share of the Argentinean market via DNP."

      ¥ From BAT's five-year plan for 1994-1998: "A key issue for BAT is
to ensure that the Group's system wide objectives and performance are
given the necessary priority through the active and effective management
of such [DNP] business."

      ¥ In China, the company sought to "investigate alternative export
routes/customers that will improve penetration of UK brands in northern
and central provinces."

      ¥ In Colombia, a memo said, "DNP product should be launched two
weeks after the DP product has been launched."

      Asked to respond to charges based on its own internal documents, BAT
was aggressively evasive.

      "We do not intend to answer questions or address allegations
apparently based on highly selective and out-of-context documents, about
matters which are more properly addressed - and in many instances are
being addressed with our full cooperation - by governments and customs
authorities around the world," the company said in a statement in response
to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The company
said that it knows that some of its products "are handled other than
through official channels," but added that "we cannot control the
distribution chain all the way to the final customer."

      Forced to appear before the British parliamentary committee with
Clive Bates and Duncan Campbell, a reporter affiliated with ICIJ and the
Guardian newspaper, BAT Chair Martin Broughton denounced the committee as
a "kangaroo court." He ripped up a copy of an internal memo handed him
that referred to the smuggling, and denied he had read a lengthy series of
articles in the Guardian based on the ICIJ investigation.