Monday 27 August 2012

History’s Most Hated Companies



Think BP is universally loathed? The oil giant has nothing on United Fruit, Union Carbide, and other corporate rogues. The Urban Titan surveys top historians to determine the all-time worst.

1. Blackwater

Security Company founded in 1997 with strong connections to the U.S. State Department and military.  Involved in smuggling more dirty business. Has now been renamed to Xe Services.

2.Nestlé

Chocolate manufacturer was in the late 1970s in a scandal relating to baby milk witch led to a boycott against the company  in 1977th  Was severely criticized by Greenpeace in 2010 for using environmentally destructive palm oil in chocolate.
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3.Goldman Sachs

Has been a lot of beating in the wake of financial crisis.The investment bank was sued in 2010 by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for having cheated clients with risky investments.Pictured CEO and Chairman Lloyd Blankfein.
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4. Microsoft

Company founder Bill Gates may be one of the world’s biggest philanthropists. But while many wrinkles on his nose for the software giant’s monopolistic practices.
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5. British Petroleum

BP’s top management in public relations fiasco following the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
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6. International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT)

Was a major shareholder in Chilean telecommunications company Chitelco.   Accused in the early 1970s for having helped to topple the then Chilean president Salvador Allende, who was succeeded by dictator Augusto Pinochet.

7. United Fruit Company

American companies in the early 1900s with a monopoly on the banana trade and deeply affecting the economic and political developments in several Latin American countries. United Fruit Company (now Chiquita Brands International) gave its name to the term banana republic.

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8. Exxon

Got terrible reputation tarnished when the company’s supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground off Alaska in March 1989.
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9. Union Carbide

Killed nearly 15,000 people in India with methyl isocyanate in the “deadliest disaster in business history”, according to The Daily Beast.    Was sued in 1989 by the Indian state, while top management was in prison

10. Standard Oil

The company led by industrialist John D. Rockefeller (pictured) was widely admired in the late 1880s.Was hated because of unscrupulous business practices.  Was forced in 1911 by the U.S. Department of Justice to shatter the 34 “small parts” with names like Mobil, Exxon, Chevron, and Amoco.

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