Story filmed by RTS and BBC airs in UK on “Panorama” tonight
Switzerland’s largest company in lengthy rebuttal says not so
DRC copper mining at Kamatanda, near Likasi in Katanga province (mine NOT owned by Glencore), 17 January 2011 - Photo: Carême/Meinrad Schade
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Glencore, Switzerland’s largest company in terms of turnover and reportedly the supplier of 50 percent of the world’s copper, is accused of indirectly buying material from an “artisanal mine” in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that uses freelance miners as young as 10 years old. The company reacted with a lengthy refutation, not of the Glencore report (pdf) by two Swiss groups, but to a show based on that information, to be aired tonight by the BBC.
Glencore and XStrata are presenting their proposed merger to shareholders in May, prompting closer scrutiny of the Glencore’s reputation in the area of ethical business practices.
The merger would make the new $90 billion company the world’s third largest mining and raw materials group.
Both are based in Zug. Xstrata’s roots lie in a firm called Südelektra, founded in 1926. The name was changed in 2002 and the company went public 10 years ago.
The accusations of child labour and other illegal or at best dubious practices on the part of Glencore are made in a lengthy report issued 16 April by two politically active Swiss charities who are noted for their research “into the causes of poverty that affects large sections of the population”, says Zewo-certified Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund (Carême in French and Fastenopfer in German), which issued the report with Bread for All.
The report is the result of six months of investigation into the company’s work in the DRC, a followup to an earlier report when Glencore was listed on the stock market in 2011. Among its findings:
- copper from a mine where one-third of the miners are children, working in unsafe conditions, is making its way into Glencore’s supply lines; Glencore owns the mine, which is dormant, and the company says it has been overrun by artisanal miners, industry lingo for freelancers who mine and sell as best they can
- ” In one of Glencore’s processing plants in Luilu, sulphuric acid is discharged untreated into the river of the same name, with devastating consequences for the environment and the people living in the surrounding villages, who have lost an important water source.” The company says the problem pre-dates its ownership and has now been dealt with but film footage reportedly shows otherwise
- Glencore is accused of not respecting labour laws and of using fiscal practices that deprive the country of income that could replace aid money: “Glencore lawfully pays duties in the DRC in the form of licence fees and import/export tax. However, with the company shifting its profits made in the Congo through transfer pricing between its subsidiaries and into tax havens, the Congolese state’s according to calculations of the Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund and Bread for all loss in dividends and tax on profits amounted to around196 million US dollars in the last two years.”
Swiss legal loopholes for overseas subsidiaries targeted
The report notes that
Carel Ijsselmuiden, Cohred
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two major players in the field of international health research have now joined forces.
The Global Forum for Health Research and Cohred, the Council on Health Research for Development, merged officially at the end of April, less than six months after announcing the merger.
“We hope that Forum 2012 will set the tone for new thinking, beyond ‘aid’ – concentrating on research and innovation as core drivers of health and development, and as a practical way for low and middle income countries to take charge of their own development agendas while working closely with high income country partners,” says Carel IJsselmuiden, director of Cohred and now executive director of the new organization.
Each group brings expertise and tools in an area that is complementary to the work of the other:
United Airlines has agreed to buy Continental in what the two are calling a merger of equals, for about $3.2 billion. The new airline, to be called United, will fly to 59 countries, 389 destinations, and it will be the world’s largest airline, with more passengers than Delta, the current leader. It will have $29 billion in annual revenue, based on 2009 figures. Chicago, hometown to United, will be its base and the CEO of Continental, Jefferey Smisek, will be the new boss of the combined airline. The deal must be approved by the two companies’ unions and US antitrust authorities.
Links to other sites: Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Guardian, Houston Chronicle, United Continental merger site
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The ongoing guessing game about who will own Cadbury is expected to end Wednesday 6 January when Kraft unveils shareholder response to its hostile takeover bid for Cadbury, but Nestlé won’t be one of the owners. The Swiss-based Nestlé says it is not bidding on Cadbury, ending speculation that it would fight Kraft for the UK-based Cadbury sweets company. Nestlé has instead offered to buy Kraft’s pizza division, the leader in the US and Canada in the frozen pizza market.
Nestlé’s $3.7 billion offer for the pizza business is allowing Kraft to increase its cash offer for Cadbury.
The pizza deal covers a number of brands, including DiGiorno, Tombstone, California Pizza Kitchen, Jack’s and Delissio.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Jean-Jacques Roth, who has just resigned as editor in chief of Le Temps newspaper, has been named to head the joint television-radio news team at the recently created Radio Television Suisse Romande (RTSR). The new entity is the result of the merger of public radio and television stations RSR and TSR, which join forces in January 2010. The two are already part of SSR, the Swiss public broadcasting company.
Roth is the only outsider of the eight person senior management team named Monday 21 December. The news teams will be coordinated, but remain separate, with Bernard Rappaz heading television news and Patrick Nussbaum heading the radio team.
The complete management group:
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The second and third largest mobile phone operators in Switzerland, Orange and Sunrise, will merge, with France Telecom buying 75 percent of the shares in Sunrise, which is owned by TDC of Denmark, for €1.5 billion. TDC will hold 25 percent. The combined company will have 38 percent of the mobile market and 13 percent of the fixed, thus positioning it to provide stiffer competition for telephone leader Swisscom, which formerly had a Swiss monopoly.
Links to other sites: Orange (Fre), TSR (Fre) and joint press release (Eng) with details
Shared Internet news ok, but not on radio and TV
Geneva / Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The merger of TSR, public television in French-speaking Switzerland, and RSR, public radio, is meeting some resistance from cantonal governments, which insist the two editorial teams must remain separate and independent. Vaud and Geneva, in a joint statement released Monday 23 November, say they would also like to see the traditional roles maintained of Lausanne as a radio centre and Geneva as a television centre. The statement was made in advance of today’s presentation of the merger project to the board of SSR, the parent company.
Spanish air carrier Iberia and British company British Air (BA) have ended 16 months of negotiations with an agreement to merge as equal partners, but the deal is far from done. The new company would be tax resident in Spain, but the head office would be in Britain. BA’s pension plan debt of £2.66 billion, exactly equal to the value of the company, must be brought under control or Iberia could still back out of the deal, according to the terms of the agreement. Iberia Friday morning 13 November posted a nine-month pre-tax and interest operating loss of €331 million, higher than analysts expected, for a net loss of €181m during the period. The new airline, which does not yet have a name (TopCo is being used temporarily), would be Europe’s third largest, after Lufthansa and Air France-KLM.
Links to other sites: El Pais (Spa), Financial Times, London Stock Exchange news, Times, UK
...and then there was one
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss Competition Commission has given its blessing to the proposed sale of Edipresse’s Swiss operations to Zurich-based Tamedia on the grounds that competition is not threatened by the takeover. Edipresse, Switzerland’s third-largest media company, is based in Lausanne and its operations in Switzerland are limited to the French-speaking area. Tamedia owns media mostly in the German-speaking part of the country.
The competition authorites say that there is no significant overlap in the market coverage.
