| From: | Sommers sommers@*****.edu |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Question about Corp ET (long) |
| Date: | Thu, 16 Sep 1999 10:48:40 -0400 |
> > Being a PoliSci major this has been bugging me for a while. Do Corps
> > just get extraterritoriality whenever they set up a facility or do
> > they have to get it granted to them by the host country? For
> > instance, the UN building in New York was granted to the UN by the USA
> > as an territory of the UN, but the US can revoke that. Could UCAS
> > *legally* revoke a MegaCorps rights of extraterritoriality? I know
> > that it was done, sort of, in RA:S, but that was based on the claim
> > that the threat was to all of Seattle, I'm asking does UCAS have the
> > legal right in SR to just declare that it has revoked
> > extraterritoriality to a certain or all corps?
>
>Extraterritoriality is granted and revoked by the Corporate Court who have a
>similar role to the present day UN (with regard to corps). It is only
>granted when a corporation reaches a certain status (exactly how this is
>measured is a little grey).
There are certain very large limitations on such power. The UN today is the
governing body between countries, but except under specific circumstances
doesn't have a lot of direct authority. Look at East Timor, the UN was
practically begging Indonesia to let them send in peacekeepers. The
Indonesian military basically stonewalled them for a week, but finally
decided to let some of them in after they had already done what they wanted
to do.
The Corporate Court is similar in that they don't have very many powers per
se. All of their power is perceived power, and will be lost if some of the
bigger corps decide not to play ball. I can't say this enough, the megas
have a lot in common, but its mostly because of their size. They are
anything but monolithic in the their goals and attitudes. If it was in the
best interest of a few of them not to listen to the Court's orders at the
same time, there would be real chaos.
>I suppose a country could, at least temporarily, ignore the rules of
>extraterritoriality if there were mitigating circumstances but they would
>probably have to explain themselves later.
Who would they have to explain themselves to? AFAIK, the UN has nothing to
do with corporate law. And not every country follows ET. Both of the Tirs
outright forbid it. CalFree has declared some of them off limits, but
others do have it. Aztlan only gives it to Aztechnology, but since they own
the country everyone else gets shafted. Africa doesn't have many
governments. Germany depends on which part you're in. Several of the Free
Cities ban it. I can't remember off hand about England, but I think that
they have some restrictions. And I'm fairly sure that some of the NAN
nations have restrictions on it too.
>You might ask, why would the country care? Well obviously the Corporate
>Court could make the country's life 'inconvenient' to say the least, so most
>countries deal with the Corp Court in an amiable manner.
It's in both the country's and the company's best interests to maintain the
status quo, for now. But when the status quo is upset <cough, Arcology AI
in Seattle, cough> a government can change their minds. ET is not in the
UCAS constitution, so all it takes is changes in the law. I'm sorry to say
that it used to be legal in the US to own people. When it was finally
decided that this was wrong, the laws and constitution were changed. Yes,
there were problems with it, but it was done.
If a country decided to revoke ET, a corp does have several options.
1) They can sue to have the law overturned. They would have to work the
unconstitutional angle, which might be difficult. It would also be
time-consuming as it worked its way up the courts. Preliminary injunctions
would stay the order, but don't last long.
2) Ignore the order. This is the worst for the corp because it puts them up
against the country that they're host to. They're not equipped to deal with
it from a logistics view (call out the national guard) or a legal point of
view. At this point any an all officers of the company become liable for
its employees actions. And you have a company scattered around a large
geographic area with the sole identifier of a corporate logo, versus a
country that houses all of those buildings.
3) Have the law repealed. This would be the classic special interest group
working the politicians game. It might take them a while to get there, but
its the most likely to succeed.
a)You can always go for the outright bribery and blackmail, but you have to
think that every independent reporter in 6 states is going to be watching
all of them for any hint of that. Look what happened to the 2056 election.
b)Next you try to sway public opinion. Possible but a tough sell. The corps
are really good at it, but its hard to explain to a generic citizen why
they should get their reps to vote for this huge corp to be exempted from
all of the laws and taxes that he has to obey.
c) Put an economic embargo on the entire country. This is the choice that a
lot of people on the list embrace, with the thought that the country
couldn't take the pressure. The country probably couldn't, but could the
company. The US economy measures about 5 Trillion Dollars right now, and is
growing about 2-3 percent a year. If you take one fifth of it (approximate
size of the UCAS), that's about 1 Trillion Dollars, and probably
conservative. Say that half of that is attributed to the Big Ten corps., or
500 billion. So each mega that boycotts the UCAS loses 50 billions dollars
a year. That's a lot of money even to a mega, to have to explain to the
shareholders. And that assumes that they are all equal in that divide. Ares
and Novatech are probably much higher than that.
d) The megas pull out of the country entirely. See reasons c, plus the cost
of facilities. A new car plant now costs about 50-100 million to build. How
much did the Arcology cost Renraku. Do you think that they're just going to
take those kind of loses? And how about the non ET corps? Do you think that
Microdeck is going to say that they don't want to purchase all of these
cool buildings and tech for a penny on the dollar that Renraku left when
they bailed on the country?
>There is a little about the Corp Court in the Corporate Download (which I've
>just purchased), not a lot, but it gives you a little idea what they're all
>about.
>MJM
They have the ability to change policy in big ways, but only as long as
everyone keeps playing by the same rules. Change the status quo, and the
whole thing becomes a crap shoot.
Sommers
Insert witty quote here.
