New Database from Good Jobs First Tracks Regulatory Infringements by Multinational Corporations in 45 Countries

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The world’s largest corporations have paid US$700 billion in monetary penalties linked to regulatory infringements in 45 countries since 2010. Major banks, especially those based in the USA and Europe, account for more than one-third of the penalties. Ninety-five parent companies have received US$1 billion or more in penalties.

These are some of the revelations from data contained in Violation Tracker Global, a new website created by the U.S. non-governmental organization Good Jobs First, which previously produced similar databases focused on the USA and the United Kingdom. Violation Tracker Global is free to search at violationtrackerglobal.goodjobsfirst.org.

“Violation Tracker Global documents a wide range of misconduct by multinational corporations in their operations around the world,” said Philip Mattera, who directs the Violation Tracker project. “We hope it will be a valuable tool for those promoting corporate accountability efforts in many countries, including the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.”

Violation Tracker Global documents over 50,000 regulatory penalties imposed on 1,600 multinational corporations and their subsidiaries by 700 regulatory agencies and courts in the world’s largest economies in both the Global North and the Global South

The cases in Violation Tracker Global are divided into eight broad offense groups: Competition/Antitrust, Consumer Protection, Employment, Environment, Financial, Government Contracting, Healthcare, and Safety. Each entry is also tagged with one of about 100 more specific offense categories, such as privacy/data protection violations, bribery, money laundering, and workplace safety. Some countries do not disclose data in all these categories.

Entries include additional details, such as a description of the offense, the monetary penalty (both in the original currency and the equivalent in U.S. dollars), and a link back to the information source, which in most cases is the website of the regulatory agency.

Here is a list of all the countries and jurisdictions included in Violation Tracker Global: Argentina; Australia; Austria; Belgium; Brazil; Canada; Chile; China; Czech Republic; Denmark; European Commission; European Free Trade Association; Finland; France; Germany; Greece; Hong Kong; Hungary; India; Indonesia; Ireland; Israel; Italy; Japan; Kenya; Malaysia; Mexico; Netherlands; New Zealand; Nigeria; Norway; Poland; Portugal; Romania; Russia; Saudi Arabia; Singapore; South Africa; South Korea; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Taiwan; Thailand; Turkey; United Kingdom; USA; and Vietnam. There are also bribery cases from the African Development Bank; the Inter-American Development Bank; and the World Bank.