Dirt Diggers Digest No. 34
April 30, 2003
Editor: Philip Mattera
1. SEC Complaints Against Wall Street Firms List Tainted Stocks
2. Three recent reports add to critique of agricultural biotechnology
3. New resources on corporations and Iraq
4. Briefing paper and website on the corporate use of offshore tax havens
5. Legal Dockets Online extends scope to state regulatory commissions
6. Tracking down Deep Throat
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1. SEC Complaints Against Wall Street Firms List Tainted Stocks
The Securities and Exchange Commission has posted on its website
the complaints against firms involved in the $1.4 billion settlement of
charges relating to deceptive investment advice given by Wall Street
analysts. Each of the complaints, links to which can be found at the
end of the litigation releases <http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases.shtml>,
list the individual stocks for which dubious investment advice was given.
This information will be useful both for researchers and in the many
private lawsuits that will be filed in the wake of the settlement.
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2. Three recent reports add to critique of agricultural biotechnology
Three new reports provide more ammunition for critics of genetic
engineering of crops. Greenpeace has released a report called
"Monsanto & Genetic Engineering - Risks for Investors"
<http://web.greenpeace.org/reports/?campaign%5fid=3994>
that highlights from an investment perspective the problems
facing Monsanto in terms of market rejection and regulatory
constraints.
The State Public Interest Research Groups have issued a
report titled "Risky Business: Financial Risks that Genetically
Engineered Foods Pose to Kraft Foods, Inc. and Shareholders"
The Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology has issued a study
called "Post-Market Oversight of Biotech Food: Is the System
Prepared?" <http://pewagbiotech.org/research/postmarket/> that
examines the inadequate regulatory system for monitoring
genetically altered food products.
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3. New resources on corporations and Iraq
A variety of research organizations and individual researchers are
continuing to gather information on companies that are doing business
in postwar Iraq or that did business with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s.
The LA Weekly has published a series of articles on the U.S. and
European role in assiting Iraq's military build-up in the 1980s. The
latest installment looks at the foreign companies that helped Saddam
Hussein develop chemical and biological weapons. The online version
of the article <http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/23/news-crogan.php>
include profiles of some 100 companies.
The Center for Responsive Politics Open Secrets site has a new web
page on campaign contributions made by contractors working in Iraq
<http://www.opensecrets.org/news/rebuilding_iraq/index.asp>.
United for a Fair Economy has put out a report showing that executive
compensation at weapons companies has been rising faster than in other
industries. It also examines the correlation between campaign contributions
and contract awards. The report, "More Bucks for the Bang," can be found at
<http://www.faireconomy.org/press/2003/MoreBucksForBang_pr.html>.
The Corporate Research Project has published "Presenting Arms: The Iraqi
War and the U.S. Weapons Industry" <http://www.corp-research.org/archives.htm>.
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4. Briefing paper and website on the corporate use of offshore tax havens
Charlie Cray and Lee Drutman of Citizen Works have published a
briefing paper called "Sacrifice is for Suckers" on the corporate use
of offshore tax havens <http://www.citizenworks.org/corp/tax/taxbreif.php>.
The movement of corporate headquarters offshore is also the focus of
the Bermuda Project http://www.thebermudaproject.com/.
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5. Legal Dockets Online extends scope to state regulatory commissions
Legal Dockets Online <www.legaldockets.com>, a subscription
website providing links to legal information, has broadened its scope
to include the dockets of state bodies such as public service and utility
commissions. For those of you not familiar with it, Legal Dockets is
a very handy guide to the various types of court databases, including
the federal PACER sites, federal sites providing actual filings as well
as dockets, state court dockets on the free web and those that require
payment.
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6. Tracking down Deep Throat
It's not exactly corporate research, but Dirt Diggers Digest subscribers
will probably be interested in a new website <www.deepthroatuncovered.com>
that describes the four-year investigative effort by Prof. Bill Gaines and his
journalism students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to
determine the identity of the famous anonymous source in the Watergate scandal.
Phil Mattera