The criminal element has seeped deep into every nook and cranny of American society.
Forget about the underworld — these crooks dominate every aspect of our market, culture, and politics.
They cast a deep dark shadow over life in turn of the century America.
We buy gas from them (Exxon, Chevron, Unocal).
We take pictures with their cameras and film (Eastman Kodak).
We drink their beer (Coors).
We buy insurance from them to guard against financial catastrophe if we get sick (Blue Cross Blue Shield).
And then when we get sick, we buy pharmaceuticals from them (Pfizer, Warner Lambert, Ortho Pharmaceuticals).
We do our laundry washers and dryers from them (General Electric).
We vacation with them (Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines).
We buy our food from them (Archer Daniels Midland, Southland, Tyson Foods, U.S. Sugar).
We drive with them (Hyundai) and fly with them (Korean Air Lines).
All of these companies and more turned up on Corporate Crime Reporter’s list of the Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990s, released this past week at a news conference at the National Press Club.
Standing before a roomful of reporters and cameras (including a C-Span camera which took us live to our TV nation), we made the following points:
Every year, the major business magazines put out their annual surveys of big business in America.
You have the Fortune 500, the Forbes 400, the Forbes Platinum 100, the International 800 — among others.
These lists rank big corporations by sales, assets, profits and market share. The point of these surveys is simple — to identify and glorify the biggest and most profitable corporations.
The point of releasing The Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the Decade, on the other hand, was to focus public attention on the pervasive criminality that has corrupted the marketplace and that is given little sustained attention and analysis by politicians and news outlets.
To compile The Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990s, we used the most narrow and conservative of definitions — corporations that have pled guilty or no contest to crimes and have been criminally fined. And still, with the most narrow and conservative of definitions of corporate crime, we came up with society’s most powerful actors.
Six corporations that made the list of the Top 100 Corporate Criminals were criminal recidivist companies during the 1990s.
Exxon, Royal Caribbean, Rockwell International, Warner-Lambert, Teledyne, and United Technologies each pled guilty to more than one crime during the 1990s.
And we warned that we in no way imply that these corporations are in any way the worst or have committed the most egregious crimes.
We did not try to assess and compare the damage committed by these corporate criminals or by other corporate wrongdoers.
We warned that companies that are criminally prosecuted represent only the tip of a very large iceberg of corporate wrongdoing.
For every company convicted of health care fraud, there are hundreds of others who get away with ripping off Medicare and Medicaid, or face only mild slap-on-the-wrist fines and civil penalties when caught.
For every company convicted of polluting the nation’s waterways, there are many others who are not prosecuted because their corporate defense lawyers are able to offer up a low-level employee to go to jail in exchange for a promise from prosecutors not to touch the company or high-level executives.
For every corporation convicted of bribery or of giving money directly to a public official in violation of federal law, there are thousands who give money legally through political action committees to candidates and political parties. They profit from a system that effectively has legalized bribery.
For every corporation convicted of selling illegal pesticides, there are hundreds more who are not prosecuted because their lobbyists have worked their way in Washington to ensure that dangerous pesticides remain legal.
For every corporation convicted of reckless homicide in the death of a worker, there are hundreds of others that don’t even get investigated for reckless homicide when a worker is killed on the job. Only a few district attorneys across the country (Michael McCann, the DA in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, being one) regularly investigate workplace deaths as homicides.
We pointed out that corporations define the laws under which they live.
An argument can be made that the most egregious wrongful corporate acts — the genetic engineering of the food supply, or the systematic pollution of the nation’s air and waterways, or the bribery by corporate criminals of the political parties — are totally legal.
For your convenience, we print here the list of 100 crooks that fall well within a very conservative definition of criminality.
Carry this list wherever you go, and when the subject turns to crime, feel free to pull out the list and lash the criminal element.
THE TOP 100 CORPORATE CRIMINALS OF THE 1990s
1) F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $500 million
2) Daiwa Bank Ltd.
Type of Crime: Financial
Criminal Fine: $340 million
3) BASF Aktiengesellschaft
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $225 million
4) SGL Carbon Aktiengesellschaft (SGL AG)
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $135 million
5) Exxon Corporation and Exxon Shipping
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $125 million
6) UCAR International, Inc.
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $110 million
7) Archer Daniels Midland
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $100 million
8)(tie) Banker’s Trust
Type of Crime: Financial
Criminal Fine: $60 million
8)(tie) Sears Bankruptcy Recovery Management Services
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $60 million
10) Haarman & Reimer Corp.
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal fine: $50 million
11) Louisiana-Pacific Corporation
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $37 million
12) Hoechst AG
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $36 million
13) Damon Clinical Laboratories, Inc.
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $35.2 million
14) C.R. Bard Inc.
Type of Crime: Food and drug
Criminal Fine: $30.9 million
7 Corporate Crime Reporter 41(1), October 25, 1993
15) Genentech Inc.
Type of Crime: Food and drug
Criminal Fine: $30 million
16) Nippon Gohsei
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $21 million
17)(tie) Pfizer Inc.
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $20 million
17)(tie) Summitville Consolidated Mining Co. Inc.
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $20 million
10 Corporate Crime Reporter 20(3) May 20, 1996
19)(tie) Lucas Western Inc.
Type of Crime: False Statements
Criminal Fine: $18.5 million
9 Corporate Crime Reporter 4(6), January 30, 1995
19)(tie) Rockwell International Corporation
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $18.5 million
21) Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $18 million
22) Teledyne Industries Inc.
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $17.5 million
23) Northrop
Type of Crime: False statements
Criminal Fine: $17 million
24) Litton Applied Technology Division (ATD) and Litton Systems Canada (LSL)
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $16.5 million
25) Iroquois Pipeline Operating Company
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $15 million
26) Eastman Chemical Company
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $11 million
27) Copley Pharmaceutical, Inc.
Type of Crime: Food and drug
Criminal Fine: $10.65 million
28) Lonza AG
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $10.5 million
29) Kimberly Home Health Care Inc.
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $10.08 million
30)(tie) Ajinomoto Co. Inc.
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $10 million
30)(tie) Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI)
Type of Crime: Financial
Criminal Fine: $10 million
30)(tie) Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co. Ltd.
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $10 million
30)(tie) Warner-Lambert Company
Type of Crime: Food and drug
Criminal Fine: $10 million
34) General Electric
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $9.5 million
35)(tie) Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $9 million
35)(tie) Showa Denko Carbon
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $9 million
37) IBM East Europe/Asia Ltd.
Type of Crime: Illegal exports
Criminal Fine: $8.5 million
38) Empire Sanitary Landfill Inc.
Type of crime: Campaign finance
Criminal fine: $8 million
39)(tie) Colonial Pipeline Company
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $7 million
39)(tie) Eklof Marine Corporation
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $7 million
41)(tie) Chevron
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $6.5 million
41)(tie) Rockwell International Corporation
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $6.5 million
43) Tokai Carbon Ltd. Co.
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $6 million
44)(tie) Allied Clinical Laboratories, Inc.
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $5 million
44)(tie) Northern Brands International Inc.
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $5 million
44)(tie) Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation
Type of Crime: Obstruction of justice
Criminal Fine: $5 million
44)(tie) Unisys
Type of Crime: Bribery
Criminal Fine: $5 million
44)(tie) Georgia Pacific Corporation
Type of Crime: Tax evasion
Criminal Fine: $5 million
5 Corporate Crime Reporter 38(8), October 7, 1991
49) Kanzaki Specialty Papers Inc.
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $4.5 million
50) ConAgra Inc.
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $4.4 million
51) Ryland Mortgage Company
Type of Crime: Financial
Criminal Fine: $4.2 million
52)(tie) Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $4 million
52)(tie) Borden Inc.
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $4 million
52)(tie) Dexter Corporation
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $4 million
52)(tie) Southland Corporation
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $4 million
52)(tie) Teledyne Industries Inc.
Type of Crime: Illegal exports
Criminal Fine: $4 million
52)(tie) Tyson Foods Inc.
Type of Crime: Public corruption
Criminal Fine: $4 million
58)(tie) Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA)
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $3.75 million
58)(tie) Costain Coal Inc.
Type of Crime: Worker Death
Criminal Fine: $3.75 million
58)(tie) United States Sugar Corporation
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $3.75 million
61) Saybolt, Inc., Saybolt North America
Type of Crime: Environmental, bribery
Criminal Fine: $3.4 million
62)(tie) Bristol-Myers Squibb
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $3 million
62)(tie) Chemical Waste Management Inc.
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $3 million
62)(tie) Ketchikan Pulp Company
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $3 million
62)(tie) United Technologies Corporation
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $3 million
62)(tie) Warner-Lambert Inc.
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $3 million
67)(tie) Arizona Chemical Co. Inc.
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $2.5 million
67)(tie) Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail)
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $2.5 million
69) International Paper
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $2.2 million
70)(tie) Consolidated Edison Company
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $2 million
70)(tie) Crop Growers Corporation
Type of Crime: Campaign finance
Criminal fine: $2 million
70)(tie) E-Systems Inc.
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $2 million
70)(tie) HAL Beheer BV
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $2 million
70)(tie) John Morrell and Company
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $2 million
70)(tie) United Technologies Corporation
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $2 million
76) Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsubishi International Corporation
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $1.8 million
77)(tie) Blue Shield of California
Type of Crime: Fraud
Criminal Fine: $1.5 million
77)(tie) Browning-Ferris Inc.
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $1.5 million
77)(tie) Odwalla Inc.
Type of Crime: Food and drug
Criminal Fine: $1.5 million
77)(tie) Teledyne Inc.
Type of Crime: False statements
Criminal Fine: $1.5 million
77)(tie) Unocal Corporation
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $1.5 million
82)(tie) Doyon Drilling Inc.
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $1 million
82)(tie) Eastman Kodak
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $1 million
82)(tie) Case Corporation
Type of Crime: Illegal exports
Criminal Fine: $1 million
85) Marathon Oil
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $900,000
86) Hyundai Motor Company
Type of Crime: Campaign finance
Criminal Fine: $600,000
87)(tie) Baxter International Inc.
Type of Crime: Illegal Boycott
Criminal Fine: $500,000
87)(tie) Bethship-Sabine Yard
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $500,000
87(tie) Palm Beach Cruises
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $500,000
87)(tie) Princess Cruises Inc.
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $500,000
91)(tie) Cerestar Bioproducts BV
Type of Crime: Antitrust
Criminal Fine: $400,000
91)(tie) Sun-Land Products of California
Type of Crime: Campaign finance
Criminal Fine: $400,000
93)(tie) American Cyanamid
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $250,000
93)(tie) Korean Air Lines
Type of Crime: Campaign finance
Criminal Fine: $250,000
93)(tie) Regency Cruises Inc.
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $250,000
96)(tie) Adolph Coors Company
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $200,000
96)(tie) Andrew and Williamson Sales Co.
Type of crime: Food and drug
Criminal fine: $200,000
96)(tie) Daewoo International (America) Corporation
Type of Fine: Campaign finance
Criminal Fine: $200,000
96)(tie) Exxon Corporation
Type of Crime: Environmental
Criminal Fine: $200,000
100) Samsung America Inc.
Type of Crime: Campaign finance
Criminal Fine: $150,000
Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter and Robert Weissman is the editor ofMultinational Monitor. Their column appears weekly on the MoJo Wire.
