As CEO, Lütke positions Shopify as a positive force in society, enabling individuals and small businesses to trade globally. But success breeds challenges – and tough choices. In 2017, Shopify was criticized for hosting an online store for Breitbart, the right-wing news channel that has promulgated racist and sexist tropes. Lütke defended his client’s free speech rights, calling commerce “a powerful form of expression.” 

As social tensions rose over the years, Lütke seemingly grew less tolerant. In 2021, a noose emoji that had been uploaded to the company’s internal Slack channel sparked a heated debate among staff – until Lütke cut off the conversation, arguing that such talk represents “victimhood thinking” and “threatens” the effective workplace. 

Donald Trump’s election win in November marked a turning point for businesses that have struggled with diversity and freedom of speech, which now felt free to follow Trump’s lead. Shopify, which powers 12% of U.S. e-commerce, met the moment in mid-January by closing its four-year-old support program for Indigenous entrepreneurs. At the same time, members of Shopify’s equitable commerce team left the company, without explanation. Days later, Shopify shuttered a similar program, its ambitious One Million Black Businesses initiative, intended to help a million Black-owned businesses in Canada and the United States launch, grow and scale up by 2030. On February 1, Shopify abruptly shut down the Slack channel that enabled program participants to stay in touch with each other. (Shopify did not comment on the closures, and its former head of equitable commerce did not respond to queries from Corporate Knights.) 

Lütke’s X account documents his shift toward right-wing politics, with standard promotional content about Shopify, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency increasingly giving way to endorsing Trump’s tariff threats, conservative culture-war talking points, and DOGE’s chainsaw approach to slashing the size of government.

But opposition is mounting. In late February, nearly 400 Canadian tech leaders signed an open letter condemning Shopify’s cutbacks. The signees urged other tech companies to continue to protect equity and inclusion: “The future of our industry – and our country – depends on defending what makes us different.”

The post How Shopify went from Canada’s tech darling to anti-DEI appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The next day, the president extended his purge into the private sector. A second executive order compelled government agencies to certify that organizations receiving grants or contracts do not operate DEI programs. The directive also warned private companies and colleges against maintaining “illegal DEI programs,” presumably referring to a 2023 Supreme Court decision that found colleges’ race-based admissions programs unconstitutional.

Even as the American Civil Liberties Union protested that DEI policies “helped dismantle entrenched race and sex segregation in high-paying industries,” thousands of civil servants were losing their jobs, and companies such as Google, Walmart and McDonald’s started erasing formal DEI policies. 

But some companies stood strong. Delta Airlines said DEI values “are critical to our business.” Soap-maker Lush introduced three new bath bombs: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. 

The most prominent stalwart was probably Seattle retail giant Costco Wholesale, whose board voted down a proposal from a right-wing think tank to research the “risks” of maintaining its DEI program. The board said “our commitment to an enterprise rooted in respect and inclusion is appropriate and necessary.”

With its motto “Do the right thing,” America’s third-largest retailer has always been an outlier. Founder James Sinegal believes businesses succeed by doing well by their employees. “We’re proud that Costco pays the highest wages among our peers, that we provide benefit and health-care packages that are second to none, and that we’ve grown our business by promoting from within,” he said in 2012.

Three days after Trump’s executive order, chair Tony E. James said Costco’s commitment to inclusion “has never included quotas or systematic preferences, nor does it mean compromising merit. The demands of our business and our steadfast commitment to serve our members mean that we cannot afford to do anything but hire and promote the most qualified individuals.”

Four days later, 19 Republican state attorneys-general wrote a warning letter chastising Costco for “doubling down” on DEI in defiance of federal and state laws. While this story isn’t over, Costco’s stance earned it a 22% increase in online traffic on February 28, the day of a consumer boycott in support of DEI. That day, competitors Walmart, Amazon and Target all saw traffic declines.

The post Fighting back against anti-DEI attacks brings rewards. Just look at Costco. appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The conference begins November 11 in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, a shaky petrostate that earns 92% of its export revenue from oil and gas. This is the country where the very first oil wells in the world appeared in the 1840s. This year’s conference president, Mukhtar Babayev, is the nation’s ecology and natural resources minister, and a 26-year veteran of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan. 

Moreover, the UN’s visionary commitment to develop a more just, tolerant society as part of its Paris Agreement goals also looks shaky when it works with an authoritarian family dictatorship. Freedom House, a Washington, D.C.–based non-profit, gives Azerbaijan a “freedom score” of seven out of 100 (down from nine last year, and well below the U.A.E.’s score of 18/100). An undercover investigation by Global Witness, detailed in a report released last week, exposed the interest of Azerbaijan leaders to use their COP leadership position to facilitate discussion of fossil fuel deals. The NGO secretly filmed Elnur Soltanov, the CEO of COP, discussing oil and gas deals ahead of the climate summit. 

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev has been in power since 2003, when he succeeded his father, Heydar Aliyev, a former KGB official who ruled the country when it was a Soviet republic. The family has stayed in power by suppressing dissent, restricting press freedom and limiting civil liberties.

We have neither the time nor the patience for more scams or games of smoke and mirrors like your greenwashing fund.

– Pacific Climate Warrior Joseph Zane Sikulu

Earlier this year, Aliyev called Azerbaijan’s oil, which fuelled Russia for a century, “a gift from God” – signalling he’s not about to leave it in the ground. When Azerbaijan’s first large-scale solar power plant opened last October, Aliyev boasted of “moving towards a green agenda.” But the project offers few environmental benefits, since Azerbaijan plans to export the gas its own power plants no longer need. Worse, Azerbaijan waged war for three years against ethnic Armenians in their disputed, semi-autonomous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan’s initiative, which the European Parliament labelled ethnic cleansing, resulted in the flight of 136,000 Armenians. The region, Aliyev says, will now become a “green energy zone.”

Babayev likes to say that the country is acting as a bridge between East and West and the wealthy Global North and the Global South, seeking to raise US$1 billion from fossil fuel producers for a climate fund to help poor nations. Pacific Climate Warrior Joseph Zane Sikulu, from the low-lying islands of Tonga, calls it greenwash. “We have neither the time nor the patience for more scams or games of smoke and mirrors like your greenwashing fund.” 

The post An authoritarian petrostate takes centre stage as COP29 host appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Thankfully, others – including some in the business community – have been moving forcefully in the opposite direction. One notable example is Storebrand, Norway’s largest private fund manager, which last August became the first sizable investor to divest from businesses that continue to lobby against tougher environmental rules.

“Climate change is one of the greatest risks facing humanity, and lobbying activities which undermine action to solve this crisis are simply unacceptable,” said Jan Erik Saugestad, Storebrand’s CEO. InfluenceMap, a U.K.-based think tank, estimated in March 2019 that the world’s five largest oil and gas companies measured by market value – BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Total – spend almost US$200 million a year on efforts to delay, control or block policies designed to tackle climate change.

“The Exxons and Chevrons of the world are holding us back,” Saugestad noted, referring to two of the five companies whose shares Storebrand has dumped. The other three are Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto, German chemicals manufacturer BASF and Southern Co., an Atlanta-based electric utility.

Storebrand, which manages more than US$90 billion in assets, has also sold its stakes in another 22 companies – mostly power utilities, chemical companies and oil producers – that fall short of a tougher slate of climate policies that it recently adopted. Among the new criteria is a commitment not to invest in companies that derive more than 5% of their revenues from coal or oil sands.

Storebrand’s moves reflect mounting pressure on institutional investors to take a stand on climate change. A majority of Chevron shareholders supported a resolution at the company’s 2020 annual meeting that sets tougher disclosure standards on climate-related lobbying activities. Proxy Insight, which tracks corporate governance issues, reports that shareholder support for climate-lobbying resolutions averaged 47.2% last year, more than double the 21.4% recorded in 2019.

Saugestad put it well: “Investors need to be responsible and proactive in accelerating the green transition. We are not passive actors awaiting the pending systemic harm that climate change will unleash.”

Zero:

There is much to admire about the gig-economy companies that have woven themselves into our everyday lives over the past decade. Uber and Lyft have revolutionized urban transport. Instacart enables us to shop for groceries without ever leaving home, while DoorDash delivers tasty restaurant meals to our front doors, a special boon during the pandemic.

When it comes to labour practices however, these companies belong more in the 19th century than the 21st. Their drivers and personal shoppers work long hours for precious little reward. Because these workers are classified as independent contractors, they receive few if any of the normal workplace benefits, such as minimum wages, health or unemployment insurance, and parental leave.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, estimate that Uber and Lyft saved US$413 million in their state alone between 2014 and 2019 by not paying unemployment insurance premiums. More recently, the companies have been accused of violating a law passed by the state legislature last January that tightens the criteria for classifying workers as contractors.

None of that has stopped Uber and other app-based companies from fighting to preserve their workers-come-last business model. Indeed, they cranked up the pressure ahead of last November’s U.S. elections by pouring close to US$200 million into backing a California ballot initiative, known as Proposition 22, that would dilute the worker gains contained in last January’s law.

The companies contended that regulators should treat app-based businesses as technology platforms, not transport providers or food delivery services, because their workers have the flexibility to log into or out of the employer’s app at will. Uber warned that it would have little choice but to raise prices and limit services if Proposition 22 failed to pass.

Voters ended up approving the proposition by a 16-point margin. But that doesn’t make it fair on the workers.
Critics predict that Proposition 22 will reinforce the inequalities that have become a tinderbox of modern society, especially in the U.S. The UC Berkeley researchers concluded that, under the proposal, Uber and Lyft drivers would earn a mere US$5.64 an hour after factoring in down-time and expenses such as fuel and maintenance. Proposition 22 could also set a troubling precedent by encouraging deep-pocketed companies to take their cases directly to voters when they come up against laws they don’t like.

The post Heroes & Zeros: Storebrand vs. Uber appeared first on Corporate Knights.

That new reality is evident in the business world’s response to the snowballing Black Lives Matter movement. Polling indicated that most Americans were opposed to BLM when it started taking hold in 2013. But in the weeks following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May, BLM supporters had come to outweigh opponents by 28 percentage points, according to a survey by Civiqs, an online research firm.

Business reaction has hardened from feel-good statements against racism to more tangible measures with a longer-lasting impact. Netflix has promised to earmark 2% of its cash holdings – up to US$100 million – for banks to “directly support Black communities in the US.” That’s in addition to the US$120 million that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings donated to historically Black colleges and universities two weeks prior. Netflix has also added a Black Lives Matter genre to its lineup, celebrating the work of Black artists and Black history.

The power of social media has undoubtedly played a key role in shaping the response. Three of the United States’ biggest retailers – Walmart, Walgreens and CVS – said they would no longer display African-American beauty products behind locked glass after Twitter lit up with images of juxtaposed photos: one of easily accessible generic beauty products, the other of locked-away items aimed mainly at Black customers. One month later, Walmart also committed US$100 million over five years to create a new centre on racial equity.

Several companies have set specific targets for broader representation in their senior ranks.

Google, for example, has pledged to boost its leadership diversity by 30% within the next five years, in addition to pledging US$175 million to Black businesses and start-ups.

There is still a long way to go. While Black people make up about 13% of the U.S. population, they hold just 3.2% of executive and senior management positions and fewer than 1% of Fortune 500 CEO spots, according to the Center for Talent Innovation. Corporate Knights found that less than 1% of corporate leaders at TSX 60 companies are Black.

Zero

Yes, it is possible to go from Hero to Zero in a few short months. Just ask the workers at Walmart, Loblaws – Canada’s biggest supermarket chain – and the U.K.’s Tesco and Marks & Spencer, among others.

As the COVID-19 pandemic broke in early spring, food retailers lauded the contribution of cashiers, shelf-stackers and warehouse staff by jacking up their pay and benefits as compensation for the risks they were taking to get food to our tables. The typical raise was 10 to 15%, or about two dollars an hour.

Alas, Hero Pay did not last long.

By June, most of the companies had rolled back the increases. Loblaws chairman Galen Weston justified cancelling the “temporary pay premium” on the grounds that “things have now stabilized in our supermarkets and drugstores. After extending the premium multiple times, we are confident our colleagues are operating safely and effectively in a new normal.”

Some employers sought to soften the blow with other benefits. Loblaws added a one-time $160 bonus to workers’ July pay, pro-rated to a 40-hour work week. Walmart offered extra counselling services and higher staff discounts on purchases.

Not surprisingly, the workers, many of them at the bottom of the pay scale, are nonplussed. “The pandemic is not over,” noted Jerry Dias, the president of Unifor, Canada’s biggest private-sector union. “The danger has not passed. These workers are no less at risk and are no less essential today than they were yesterday.”

It’s not as if the employers could no longer afford to be generous. Empire Co., the Canadian group behind the Sobeys, FreshCo and Safeway chains, hiked its dividend less than a week after chopping its Hero Pay program. The company reported a 47% jump in net earnings for the quarter ended August 1.

Two dollars an hour may not be a huge amount of money – either for those giving or receiving it. But the extra wages did signal respect and appreciation for a group of workers who enjoy few other perks of corporate life and have exposed themselves to greater risks than most others outside the healthcare sector.

This was a perfect opportunity to narrow the widening gap in pay between those at the top and the bottom of the corporate ladder. Too bad that the grocers weren’t heroes for long.

The post Heroes & Zeros: Black Lives Matter vs. Loblaws appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Sadly, there is no shortage of choice for the title of Worst Company on Earth. A host of sweatshops surely qualify, as do any number of corrupt corporate kleptocracies, mismanaged monopolies, climate-action-obstructing fossil fuel companies, price-gouging pharmaceutical companies, weapons manufacturers…the list goes on.

The Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Mighty Earth recently took a stab at identifying the ultimate bottom-feeder in environmental governance and decided to award the dubious honour to Cargill, the agri-food giant.

The rap sheet against Cargill, the U.S.’s largest privately owned company, is a long one. In the foreword to Mighty Earth’s 7,000-word report, former U.S. Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman writes: “The people who have been sickened or died from eating contaminated Cargill meat, the child laborers who grow the cocoa Cargill sells for the world’s chocolate, the Midwesterners who drink water polluted by Cargill, the Indigenous People displaced by vast deforestation to make way for Cargill’s animal feed, and the ordinary consumers who’ve paid more to put food on the dinner table because of Cargill’s financial malfeasance – all have felt the impact of this agribusiness giant. Their lives are worse for having come into contact with Cargill.”

The report is especially scathing in regard to Cargill’s role in vast deforestation in Brazil by farmers from whom it buys massive amounts of soybeans (which largely become livestock feed).

Nonetheless, the choice of Cargill is somewhat surprising. Environmental activists even lauded it in the past for agreeing to a moratorium on buying soybeans grown on land stripped of trees in the Amazon rainforest. Cargill received a Leadership in Environment award in 2015 from the Keystone Policy Center, a non-profit.

Cargill stoutly defends itself against Mighty Earth’s charges. It noted in a statement that it donated almost US$60 million to charities in 54 countries and has agreed to a zero-deforestation commitment over a period of time in its cocoa, palm oil and soybean supply chains.

“It’s hard to hear,” Ruth Kimmelshue, the company’s chief sustainability officer, told the New York Times. “It doesn’t feel very good.”

Indeed, some may argue that other companies have a stronger claim to be the world’s worst. But in an era when business people constantly pat each other on the back with awards for excellence, no matter how obscure the achievement, it’s not a bad idea to highlight at least some of those that fall short.

Heroes: Business Roundtable

In August 19, more than 180 of the U.S.’s most powerful businesses broke with a long tradition by pledging to serve not only their owners, but also workers, customers, suppliers and communities. The Business Roundtable, America’s most influential lobby group of corporate leaders, retreated from its longstanding position that corporations exist principally to serve their shareholders.

Yet even as they did so, there was no shortage of evidence that many of these companies – and others – remain squarely focused on maximizing profits and driving up the price of their shares.

On the very same day as the announcement, three tech giants – Amazon, Facebook and Google – vowed to fight a 3% “digital” tax that France imposed earlier this year to counter the companies’ unrelenting efforts to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. A week later, an Oklahoma judge ordered another Roundtable signatory, the pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson, to pay US$572 million for its role in causing the opioid crisis that, in his words, had “ravaged” the state.

These are hardly the signs one would expect of a more caring and inclusive business community.

Even so, the Roundtable’s statement signals a welcome break from the past. Its original 1997 mission statement declared, “The paramount duty of management and of boards of directors is to the corporation’s stockholders.” The interests of other stakeholders, like employees or local communities, were only “relevant as a derivative of the duty to stockholders.”

Now, says the Roundtable, “Each of our stakeholders is essential.” To its credit, the new approach recognizes that rising public anger over issues like executive pay (and, more broadly, income inequality), climate change and the opioid crisis has sullied the reputation of business. As Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO and Roundtable chair, put it, “the American dream is alive, but fraying.”

The question is how effective the Roundtable’s new approach will be. Corporate Knights has suggested following up on the statement of purpose with concrete commitments to carbon-zero business plans and paying a living wage, for starters. Without these kinds of concrete commitments, World Resources Institute’s Kevin Moss says the Roundtable’s new statement “shows 200 CEOs are stuck in yesteryear’s (corporate social responsibility).”

However true that may be, the Roundtable’s new approach at least enables society to hold businesses to a standard based on more than quarterly earnings and return on investment. Let the scrutiny – and the consequences that flow from it – begin.

The post Heroes & Zeros: Business Roundtable evolves, while Cargill named worst company on earth appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Back in 1950s post-war America, the so-called cereal wars raged between companies working to entice customers with prizes and catchy jingles. One particularly outlandish scheme by Quaker, the Klondike Big Inch Land Promotion, even enclosed a land deed for a minuscule portion of Canada’s Yukon Territory in each box of cereal. The landscape has shifted considerably since then, with companies now vying for consumers by demonstrating their resolve to produce the most sustainable cereal on the market.

Kellogg’s, the Michigan, Detroit-based multinational food manufacturer, announced in August a series of wide-ranging targets around responsible sourcing and natural resource conservation. The most substantive move is to set a carbon reduction goal across its integrated supply chain by 2015, to be accomplished by mandating that suppliers conduct and disclose their own emissions audits. All data will be reported to the Carbon Disclosure Project.

The announcement places Kellogg’s in elite company as one of a handful of corporations that are beginning to integrate GHG emissions reporting from their main suppliers into yearly disclosure statements. The company has also set carbon reduction targets to support the effort to keep global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius. “We recognize that upstream agricultural emissions are the single largest source of emissions in our value chain and will focus our efforts on achieving agricultural emissions reductions,” the company said in a statement.

The move by Kellogg’s overshadowed a similar announcement from rival General Mills a few weeks prior. While General Mills also promised a significant emissions reduction, it stopped short of requiring carbon audits throughout the supply chain. Both companies had been targeted by Oxfam International’s Behind the Brands campaign. Oxfam has used the results of a report it commissioned earlier this year to pressure multinational food corporations into lessening their environmental footprint, improving disclosure practices and strengthening human rights policies.

“Kellogg’s new commitments add momentum to calls on governments and the wider food and agriculture industry to recognize that climate change is real, it’s happening now, and we need to tackle it,” said Monique van Zijl, campaign manager for Behind the Brands. Both companies have also agreed to join BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy), a coalition of businesses advocating for comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

Zero: Freedom Industries

Freedom Industries, the West Virginia-based company behind the massive 2014 Elk River chemical spill, reached a preliminary agreement in July regarding a class-action lawsuit representing aggrieved residents and businesses. Over 10,000 gallons of crude MCHM spilled into the Kanawha River on January 10, forcing local officials to temporarily cut off water supplies for 300,000 West Virginians. MCHM is chemical foam used to wash coal after extraction. The company declared bankruptcy a week later, a process still underway.

Anthony Majestro, an attorney representing several plaintiffs, told the Wall Street Journal that the low figure was settled upon due to the dire financial straits at Freedom Industries itself. “The reason we reached this settlement is because Freedom’s limited assets wouldn’t allow any real compensation to anyone,” said Majestro. He explained that the settlement does not include individual payments to individuals, but that it will eventually be used for “the greater good.” This may include everything from increased water tests to public education campaigns. If the payments had been split up for each of the 300,000 or so affected residents, they would have amounted to less than $10 a person. The money being devoted to the settlement is not coming directly from Freedom Industries, but rather from a $2.9 million insurance payment that Freedom Industries recently received from AIG Specialty related to the spill.

One condition of the agreement is that any subsequent cleanup costs incurred by Freedom Industries do not exceed $850,000. This is likely to clash with an August request by the State of West Virginia for the bankruptcy judge to approve $1.8 million in compensation claims for costs incurred by the state during the spill. Freedom Industries was also fined $11,000 by the Department of Labor in July for maintaining unsafe working conditions in the months leading up to the accident.

The ongoing struggle to gain any meaningful compensation from Freedom Industries has been hampered by the declaration of bankruptcy and subsequent freezing of assets. It’s a tactic that has been used repeatedly in recent years to preempt litigation around environmental compensation, most recently in Tennessee. In 2010, the Arrowhead Landfill in Perry County, Alabama, declared bankruptcy to avoid a series of lawsuits around its improper storage of coal ash that was blowing into neighbouring communities.

Click here to view our complete Heroes and Zeros series.

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Tyson Foods, the second largest pork processor and marketer in the United States, recently issued new animal treatment guidelines to its pork suppliers regarding the treatment of pigs. In a letter sent to hog farmers in January, the company encouraged pork producers to phase out the use of manual blunt force as a method of euthanizing sick and injured piglets. It also asked suppliers to implement more humane gestation crates for pregnant sows, and committed to increasing third-party audits in 2014. A further recommendation was made for farmers to begin installing video cameras at their facilities. “These steps are being taken as part of our ongoing animal well-being program and reflect input we’ve received from our animal well-being advisory panel, customers, farmers and industry experts,” said Tyson spokesperson Gary Mickelson in a statement.

The National Pork Board, a government body in charge of pork promotion, research and consumer information, was quick to challenge a number of Tyson’s recommendations. While not fully rejecting the idea of video monitoring, it did emphasize the significant cost incurred by the farmer. The pork board also defended the practice of manual blunt force, arguing that it complies with American Veterinary Medical Association guidelines. The U.S. Humane Society hailed the announcement as an important step, but called for a set timetable around the termination of gestation crate use.

Tyson found itself under increased pressure to implement reforms after an undercover video shot at one of its pork suppliers last year showed animals being abused and mistreated. In response, Green Century Capital Management, the Humane Society and the United Methodist Church Benefit Board submitted a shareholder resolution to Tyson’s 2014 annual general meeting. It called for a report on the reputational and financial risks brought on by the continued use of gestation crates, stating that “rising concerns over these cages have rapidly shifted the marketplace, with dozens of top global food brands – including Tyson customers – demanding change.” Companies like Costco and McDonalds have responded to consumer pressure by dedicating themselves to the complete elimination of all gestation crates from their American supply chain by 2022. The resolution was withdrawn after Tyson’s January announcement.

Zero: Alcoa

Alcoa and a subsidiary pled guilty in January at a U.S. federal court to bribery charges, and agreed to pay a combined US$384 million to settle illegal payments made in relation to a Bahraini aluminum smelter. The New York-based firm, the third largest producer of aluminum in the world, agreed to pay $161 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Subsidiary Alcoa World Alumina LLC also confessed to violating the FCPA, and agreed to pay the Department of Justice (DOJ) $223 million over the next four years. “Alcoa welcomes the resolution of this legacy legal matter with the U.S. government,” the company said in a press release.

According to court documents, Alcoa World Alumina was asked in 1989 by Bahraini government representatives to hire a specific consultant. Payments were channeled through this individual between 1989 and 2009. Aluminum Bahrain B.S.C. (Alba), considered one of the largest aluminum smelters in the world, is owned by the Bahraini government. Payments of $110 million were distributed as kickbacks to numerous senior government officials.

“Alcoa World Alumina today admits to its involvement in a corrupt international underworld in which a middleman secretly held offshore bank accounts, and shell companies were used to funnel bribes to government officials in order to secure business,” said acting assistant attorney general Mythili Raman in an announcement outlining the case. The $384 million settlement with the DOJ and SEC is the fourth largest of its kind. Alcoa settled a separate civil claim last year after agreeing to pay Alba $85 million.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, passed by Congress in 1977, has served as a powerful tool for combatting bribery involving both American companies and other firms doing business in the United States. The scope of enforcement has grown in recent years after a specialized unit was created within the SEC in 2010 to focus solely on FCPA violations. Eight companies were targeted with enforcement actions last year, including France’s Total S.A., which was fined $398 million for bribing an Iranian government official.

Click here to view our complete Heroes and Zeros series.

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