For more than a year, U.S. intelligence has been monitoring Erik Prince’s communications and movements, probing allegations that he used his company as a cover to set up Blackwater-style operations.
Tag: Hong Kong
Just Because Australia Won Its Plain Packaging Case Against Philip Morris Doesn’t Mean Corporate Sovereignty Isn’t A Threat | Techdirt
the dismissal of the case on procedural grounds means that we will never get a ruling on the substance of Philip Morris’ claims. As such, the award contributes nothing to the bigger debate about the conflict between investment protection and public policy.
Head Of UK Parliamentary Committee Overseeing Intelligence Agencies Resigns After Being Caught In Sting
The UK government’s response to Snowden’s leaks has been twofold: that everything is legal, and that everything is subject to rigorous scrutiny. We now know that the first of these is not true, and the second is hardly credible either, given that the UK’s main intelligence watchdog has only one full-time member. There’s one other main oversight body, the UK’s Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC), which is tasked with examining:
the policy, administration and expenditure of the Security Service, Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
The ISC was criticized as part of a larger condemnation of intelligence oversight by another UK Parliament committee. The head of the ISC, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, was reported by the Guardian as dismissing those criticisms as “old hat,” as if that somehow made them acceptable. Rifkind has now been caught up in a rather more serious row, which involves reporters from the UK’s Channel 4 and The Telegraph newspaper posing as representatives of a Chinese company:
PMR, a communications agency based in Hong Kong was set up, backed by a fictitious Chinese businessman. PMR has plenty of money to spend and wants to hire influential British politicians to join its advisory board and get a foothold in the UK and Europe.
Here’s what Channel 4 and the Telegraph allege happened in their meeting with Rifkind:
Sir Malcolm also claimed he could write to a minister on behalf of our company without saying exactly who he was representing
Sir Malcolm added that he could see any foreign ambassador in London if he wanted, so could provide ‘access’ that is ‘useful’
Rifkind said that he was “self-employed” — in fact, he is a Member of Parliament, and receives a salary of £67,000 per year — and that his normal fee was “somewhere in the region of £5,000 to £8,000” for half a day’s work. There’s no suggestion that Rifkind made any reference during the sting to his role as head of the ISC, but that’s not really the point. He was offering a Chinese company access to influential people purely because he would get paid to do so, and that is surely not the kind of person you would want to grant the high-level security clearance Rifkind enjoys.
John Oliver Highlights The Ridiculousness Of Corporate Sovereignty Provisions
Now countries can try to counteract the influence of that kind of marketing, but if tobacco companies feel threatened, they’ll put them through legal hell. Let me take you on a world tour of how they attack laws intended to protect public health, because it’s kind of amazing.
Let’s start in Australia. In 2011, they passed a plain packaging law, and what that means is this. [Shows (fair use!) news clip describing required packaging of cigarettes with no branding, and scary health pictures]. Australia’s plain packaging law bans tobacco company branding from packaging and replaced it with upsetting photos, such as the toe tag on a corpse, the cancerous mouth, the nightmarish eyeball, or the diseased lung. Now, yes, I’m pretty sure I’d find a healthy lung disgusting, but, that thing does look like you’re trying to breathe through baked ziti, so [instructing staff] take it down! Just take it down!
Perhaps unsurprisingly, since this law was implemented, total consumption of tobacco cigarettes in Australia fell to record lows and… nightmares about eyeballs have risen to record highs. [Instructing staff] Take it down! Take down the demon eye!
To get these laws, though, Australia has had to run a gamut of lawsuits. First, two tobacco companies sued Australia in its highest court to stop them. The result, was a little surprising, as Australia’s attorney general let everyone know. [Shows clip of AG announcing not just the victory, but Big Tobacco having to pay the government’s legal fees.] Yes! Score one for the little guy! Even if that little guy is the sixth largest country in the world by landmass.
And the tobacco companies didn’t just lose. The judges called their case “delusive,” “unreal and synthetic” and said their case had “fatal defects.” ….
But Australia’s legal troubles were just beginning. Because then, Philip Morris Asia got involved. [Shows clips of a news report saying Philip Morris considering using ISDS provisions to take the Australian government to a tribunal claiming it lowered the value of the company’s trademarks].
That’s right. A company was able to sue a country over a public health measure, through an international court. How the fuck is that possible? Well, it’s really a simple explanation. They did it by digging up a 1993 trade agreement between Australia and Hong Kong which had a provision that said Australia couldn’t seize Hong Kong-based companies’ property. So, nine months before the lawsuits started, PMI put its Australian business in the hands of its Hong Kong-based Philip Morris Asia division, and then they sued, claiming that the “seized property” in question, were the trademarks on their cigarette packages.
And you’ve got to give it to them: that’s impressive. Someone should really give those lawyers a pat on the back… and a punch in the face. But, a pat on the back first. Pat, then punch. Pat, punch….