Reports
November 27, 2012 - 01:00
A small club of international law firms, arbitrators and financial speculators are fuelling lawsuits by foreign investors against states that cost taxpayers billions of dollars and prevent legislation in the public interest. Emblematic cases include tobacco giant Philip Morris suing Uruguay and Australia over health warnings on cigarette packets, and Swedish energy multinational Vattenfall seeking $3.7bn from Germany following that country’s decision to phase-out nuclear energy. Profiting from Injustice uncovers a secretive but burgeoning legal industry which benefits from these disputes – at the expense of taxpayers, the environment and human rights.
November 7, 2012 - 11:12
Oil and gas companies from the United States and across Europe are targeting Brussels in an all-out campaign to prevent EU-wide rules for the developing shale gas industry. No legislation has been proposed, but there has already been intensive lobbying in the European Parliament and Commission, with industry funding reports, advertisements and websites, designed to show that shale gas does not pose a threat to the environment or to public health, and to promote the fiction that it is a green source of fuel. This report maps out the lobby players ahead of vote in the European Parliament on the need for regulation.
November 7, 2012 - 11:10
Ce débat vient d’atteindre Bruxelles où le Parlement européen et d’autres institutions européennes ont été assiégés par les grands acteurs des secteurs pétroliers et gaziers. Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, Statoil, Shell, PGNiG, Total, OMV et compagnie essayent non seulement de minimiser les dégâts écologiques et sociaux de la production de gaz de schistes, mais ils cherchent aussi à faire passer le gaz pour une option énergétique favorable aux climats dans un avenir moins carboné.
November 6, 2012 - 10:51
Around 97 full-time lobbyists defend the interests of the tobacco industry in Brussels, and the industry’s total annual lobbying budget in the EU capital exceeds €5.3 million, according to new research by Corporate Europe Observatory. But these figures are only the tip of the iceberg. And a key Dalligate-related question remains: is the mystery “company with expertise in EU affairs” allegedly working with Silvio Zammit, the political associate of former Health Commissioner John Dalli, in the register?
September 13, 2012 - 10:14
An army of several hundred industry lobbyists, many representing Japanese and North American corporations, has quietly laid siege to Brussels in an effort to persuade the European Union (EU) not to ban powerful greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) present in Europe’s refrigeration and air conditioning systems.
June 26, 2012 - 12:04
The future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post 2013 is now being debated, with the Commission proposing a new €4.5 billion budget for agricultural research. The proposal is highly strategic: the research projects that are prioritised and funded today may have a decisive impact on the way agriculture is practised in the future. That is why the ongoing lobbying battle for the control of these funds is so important: behind these projects, it is the very vision for the future of agriculture in Europe which is at stake.
June 19, 2012 - 16:03
Vingt ans après le premier Sommet de Rio de Janeiro au Brésil, les gouvernements vont se retrouver de nouveau à Rio pour le Sommet des Nations-Unies sur le Développement durable, du 20 au 22 juin.
June 19, 2012 - 09:35
The UN's Rio+20 summit this week will be the target of unprecedented levels of industry activity, including lobbying and greenwash. At the same time, there is growing critique of the corporate capture of the UN - with UN agencies appearing to endorse greenwashing without any criticism.This article is also available in French.
June 14, 2012 - 01:24
Highways cutting through protected nature areas in Europe? Privatised forests and ugly houses in what was until now a common area of natural beauty? As long as the company building it pays to 'protect' other area in a remote place. This is what biodiversity offsets are about. Just one of the things the European Commission is proposing together with business under the name of green economy.
Twenty years after the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, governments will once again converge on Rio for the third UN Summit on Sustainable Development from the 20-22 June.
May 22, 2012 - 10:50
The Roundtable on Responsible Soy launched its voluntary certification process in 2006, with the first certificates introduced in 2011. Audits of 10 of the companies certified have now been published online. This briefing by the GM Freeze, Friends of the Earth (England Wales and Northern Ireland) and Corporate Europe Observatory analyses the audits and finds they show little evidence of responsible soy production on the ground.
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Corporate Europe Observatory
Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) is a research and campaign group working to expose and challenge the privileged access and influence enjoyed by corporations and their lobby groups in EU policy making.
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