The Taizhou City Environmental Protection Association, a public interest group, won a major legal victory on Tuesday when a court imposed the country’s biggest environmental fine from public interest litigation against a corporate polluter. Jiangsu provincial high court ordered six unnamed companies to pay a total of $26 million for emitting waste chemicals into rivers, according to the state news agency. The court ordered the polluters to pay the money into an environmental protection fund within 30 days. Several officials of the companies had been sentenced to prison in a criminal ruling in August. Ma Tianjie, Greenpeace East Asia’s programme director for mainland China, said: “This case sets important precedents for environmental governance in China.” “First, ’polluters pay’ is no longer just a principle written on paper, and second, that NGOs can bring lawsuits on behalf of the public interest.” (Financial Times*)
Corporate Reputation
BP probes in-house foreign exchange traders
BP is investigating whether in-house financial traders at the oil and gas group were involved in a foreign exchange manipulation scandal that has led regulators to levy $4.3 billion in fines on six banks. Additional questions about the potential involvement of BP’s traders in alleged attempts to rig the world’s $5.3 trillion-a-day forex markets have been prompted by a Bloomberg report that bank employees tipped off the oil and gas group ahead of some big currency trades. Bloomberg cited three undated messages sent to BP’s traders by the powerful network of senior foreign-exchange traders calling themselves “The Cartel” at four banks; JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, UBS and Citigroup. It said BP was given “valuable information” about planned currency trades “sometimes hours before they happened”. But it could not be determined whether any BP employees acted on any information received. In an emailed statement, BP said: “Following regulatory market (not into BP) investigations regarding the forex markets, we conducted a review into our activities in this area.” (Financial Times*)
Employees
Oil workers to pay for near 50% price fall
Oil prices are on course for their largest annual slide since 2008 forcing oil companies to re-examine their investment plans and look for ways to reduce costs. BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Chevron have all ordered sharp cuts in the rates paid to skilled contractors on projects in the UK North Sea, affecting thousands of self-employed oil and gas workers in the North Sea region. US-based Chevron told employment agencies that it would reduce rates from the 1st of January “to better align with industry benchmarks and manage cost pressures”, while BP has decided to cut the wages of 450 workers by up to 15 per cent from the new year. The cuts in contractors’ pay have raised fears that job losses will soon follow if crude oil prices fail to recover. Unite, the British union, said that the oil majors’ actions would “cascade” through the industry and urged them to resist “short-term measures”. (Financial Times*)
Collaboration
Ethical Corp expands to Singapore
Ethical Corporation has launched The Responsible Business Summit Asia taking place on May 6th and 7th 2015 in Singapore. The Summit brings together corporate practitioners all working in corporate sustainability, environment, supply chain and communications from Fortune 500 companies with operations in the Asia Pacific region, as well as Asian based companies. A diverse range of industries will be represented at the Summit including; retail, FMCG, finance, extractives, utilities, B2B manufacturers, and telecommunications. Head of Ethical Corporation Asia and project director Elina Yumasheva says: “We aim to create an interactive platform for our Asia Pacific corporate community, which helps to learn about sustainability best practice in the context of the region. We appreciate socio economic background of Asia and serve supply chain, sustainability, environment needs relevant for the region. First and foremost, it is a practical forum that helps businesses to do the right thing.” (Eco Business)
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