To Catch a Polluter

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To Catch a Polluter

guardian.co.uk

Oil trader Trafigura hoped to make millions in profits by chemically “scrubbing” contaminated Mexican gasoline.

British oil trader Trafigura had hundreds of tons of toxic waste. It decided to dump it in Ivory Coast, causing a number of deaths and sending thousands to hospitals. The company played dumb, claiming ignorance of the waste’s lethal danger. Now Trafigura has been caught in a web of lies, shot down by internal company e-mails.

The Guardian:

The Guardian can reveal evidence today of a massive cover-up by the British oil trader Trafigura, in one of the worst pollution disasters in recent history.

Internal emails show that Trafigura, which yesterday suddenly announced an offer to pay compensation to 31,000 west African victims, was fully aware that its waste dumped in Ivory Coast was so toxic that it was banned in Europe.

Thousands of west Africans besieged local hospitals in 2006, and a number died, after the dumping of hundreds of tonnes of highly toxic oil waste around the country’s capital, Abidjan. Official local autopsy reports on 12 alleged victims appeared to show fatal levels of the poisonous gas hydrogen sulphide, one of the waste’s lethal byproducts.

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By mcthorogood, September 17, 2009 at 6:35 pm Link to this comment

Now we know where Sonia Sotomayor stands on the issue of corporate person-hood.

“Sotomayor Issues Challenge to a Century of Corporate Law”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125314088285517643.html

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By PatrickHenry, September 17, 2009 at 4:19 pm Link to this comment

The company needs to be sued out of existence, its officers and responsible agents jailed and all their assets (public and private) seized. The insurer should be made to pay for all costs for cleanup the assets of the company don’t cover.

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By charlie kasnick, September 17, 2009 at 1:13 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Corporate limited legal liabilities far exceed any tax cuts radical republicans want to inact.

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By mcthorogood, September 17, 2009 at 11:44 am Link to this comment

In this country corporate lawyers have sued for equal rights under the Constitution, resulting in immortal legal entities with the ability to amass enormous wealth. Corporations, such as Eli Lilly and Pfizer, have been convicted of felonies and are allowed to continue business as usual.

Corporations want the same rights as sovereign human beings, yet an ersatz legal entity can’t subjected to capital punishment? Hell, Antonin Scalia says that nothing in the U.S. Constitution prohibits the execution of an innocent human being, yet it’s harder to pull the switch on a corporation.

A whole lot of corporations, such as Trafigura et. al., would suddenly come to Jesus, if they knew that they would be dissolved when they committed a heinous crime.

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