Environment

Prosecuting the Boss

A courtroom in Germany is currently the scene of a rare occurrence in the business world: the trial of a high-level executive for corporate crimes. Martin Winterkorn, the former top executive of Volkswagen, is facing charges of commercial fraud, market manipulation and making false statements.

Arguably, he should be facing even more serious allegations. Winterkorn is being belatedly tried in connection with the vast conspiracy in which Volkswagen executives conspired to deceive regulators and the public about the environmental impact of its diesel cars. By rigging the vehicles so their emissions appeared to be within legal limits when they were actually much higher, VW was responsible for releasing vast amounts of extra pollution into the air. The health effects are incalculable.

Winterkorn’s trial, delayed for health reasons, comes nine years after the emissions scandal erupted. During that time, the company has faced perhaps the most wide-ranging regulatory barrage in business history.

In the United States, VW paid a series of enormous penalties. These included a $14.7 billion settlement with the federal government and the state of California announced in 2016. The deal included $10 billion to be used for buying back vehicles with the illegal defeat devices and $4 billion to mitigate pollution from the cars and invest in green vehicle technology.

The following year, VW paid another $4 billion to settle a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission concerning another group of vehicles. The company pled guilty to three felony counts and paid a criminal penalty of $2.8 billion.

VW also faced regulatory actions and lawsuits around the world. Here are some of the most notable.

In its home country of Germany, VW was fined the equivalent of $1.2 billion in a case brought by government prosecutors and another $900 million in a lawsuit brought by the Federation of German Consumer Organizations.

In a case brought by Environment and Climate Change Canada, VW paid a fine equal to $150 million. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission fined VW the equivalent of $86 million for deceiving customers about compliance with Australian diesel emissions standards.

India’s National Green Tribunal fined VW 5 billion rupees (US$71 million) for installing the cheating devices. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission fined VW the equivalent of $31 million for false advertising on vehicle emissions. Among the other countries that penalized VW are Poland ($31 million), Brazil ($13 million), and the Netherlands ($536,000).

As important as these cases have been in highlighting VW’s egregious misconduct and extracting financial penalties, the individual prosecution of Winterkorn could have a greater long-term impact. Even though he is no longer employed by the company (he resigned under pressure in 2015), his trial is a demonstration of how a high-level executive can be held personally accountable for misdeeds under his watch. This is especially true in a case such as Winterkorn’s in which the executive is accused of committing some of those misdeeds himself.

If convicted, Winterkorn, 77, is unlikely to spend time behind bars. But a guilty verdict would send a strong signal to other unscrupulous executives.

Note: the enforcement actions discussed above (and much more) will be included in the forthcoming Violation Tracker Global.

Greenpeace Slaps Back

Asked to define the phrase Energy Transfer, most people would say it sounds like something they dimly recall from high school physics. Actually, it is the name of a giant corporation that owns the country’s largest petroleum transportation system, including the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which was the focus of intense protests in 2016.

Energy Transfer and DAPL are back in the news because a trial is set to begin in the latest phase of the company’s legal assault against opponents of the pipeline. Despite the protests led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other indigenous groups, the pipeline was completed and went into operation in 2017. That was in large part due to the intervention of the Trump Administration in one of its first acts. Energy Transfer CEO Kelcy Warren was a big contributor to Trump during the 2016 presidential race. This year he gave $5 million to a pro-Trump Super PAC.

Although it won the battle to build DAPL, Energy Transfer has been on a crusade against its adversaries. Initially, it targeted Standing Rock Sioux chairman Dave Archambault and other tribal leaders at the center of the protests. When that failed, it went after Greenpeace and has not relented. In doing so, it has mounted one of the most aggressive examples of what are known as SLAPP suits (strategic lawsuits against public participation)—legal actions meant to intimidate anti-corporate protests.

In 2017 Energy Transfer filed a federal racketeering suit against Greenpeace that made extravagant allegations that tried to depict the group’s legitimate criticisms of the company and DAPL as a violent criminal conspiracy. The complaint accused Greenpeace of “manufacturing a media spectacle based upon phony but emotionally charged hot-button issues, sensational lies, and intentionally incited physical violence, property destruction, and other criminal conduct.”

Greenpeace vehemently denied advocating or engaging in any violent acts, while also insisting it did not organize the protests but was simply supporting a campaign led by tribal groups. A federal judge threw out the racketeering case, but Energy Transfer has continued to pursue the matter at the state level and is seeking $300 million in damages.

The North Dakota complaint filed in 2019 employs much of the same overheated rhetoric as the unsuccessful federal action. It accuses Greenpeace and several co-defendants of pursuing an “extremist agenda — to attack and disrupt Energy Transfer’s business and its construction of DAPL — through means far outside the bounds of democratic political action, protest, and peaceful, legally protected expression of dissent.”

Yet the company focuses a great deal on such expressions of dissent, alleging that the defendants “engaged in large-scale, intentional dissemination of misinformation and outright falsehoods regarding Energy Transfer, DAPL’s environmental impact, and Energy Transfer’s extensive efforts to address the concerns of local North Dakota communities.”

It is language such as this that prompts Greenpeace to argue that the case represents a serious threat to First Amendment rights. If Energy Transfer is successful in pushing the idea that those criticizing its actions are guilty of defamation, that would indeed have a chilling effect on corporate accountability activism.

As Greenpeace points out, there is a lot to criticize about Energy Transfer even apart from DAPL. In Violation Tracker we document 383 instances since 2000 in which the company and its subsidiaries were fined or reached settlements in cases involving environmental, safety or other infractions. The associated penalties amount to $611 million.

Five of these cases were brought as criminal matters. These include a 2022 case brought by then-Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro in which two Energy Transfer subsidiaries pleaded no contest to criminal water pollution charges relating to the release of large quantities of drilling fluids containing potentially hazardous substances in places where it could contaminate drinking water supplies. AG Shapiro stated that in bringing the case his office was “holding Energy Transfer accountable for their crimes against our natural resources.”

It is unclear whether Energy Transfer really believes the lawsuit will silence its critics. For its part, Greenpeace shows no sign of being intimidated and is defending itself forcefully, which is in keeping with its long track record of standing up to the powerful. Energy Transfer may have SLAPPed, but Greenpeace is slapping back.

For more details on the lawsuit, see this website just launched by Greenpeace.

PFAS Payouts

BP and its drilling partners were hit with over $60 billion in fines and settlements in connection with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. That remains the largest payout in any environmental case, but the legal costs associated with another issue are starting to catch up.

That issue is the widespread contamination of drinking water supplies with synthetic chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These substances, which are considered possible carcinogens, do not break down in the body or the environment and thus have been dubbed forever chemicals. Detectible level of PFAS can be found in just about everyone alive.

PFAS cases first gained attention in relation to the effort in West Virginia, dramatized in the film Dark Waters, to hold DuPont accountable for contaminating water with chemicals used as coatings for non-stick cookware. In 2017 DuPont and its spinoff Chemours each paid $335 million to settle litigation over the issue.

Now the settlement amounts have grown larger. Last year, 3M agreed to pay over $10 billion to public water suppliers around the country. The case is awaiting final court approval.

Final approval was recently given to a $1.85 billion settlement reached by DuPont, Chemours and DuPont’s other spinoff Corteva with a group of municipal water suppliers relating to contamination caused by PFAS in firefighting foam.

There have also been numerous settlements below $1 billion but still substantial. Last year the Belgian chemical company Solvay agreed to pay $393 million to the state of New Jersey for PFAS contamination at a plant in Gloucester County. The footwear company Wolverine World Wide paid a total of $96 million in two lawsuits connected to contamination in Michigan.

Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, Honeywell International and 3M agreed to pay a total of $65 million in another firefighting foam case in upstate New York. DuPont is also a defendant in the case but has refused to settle.

It is encouraging to see these companies held responsible for their role in the proliferation of PFAS, but it is unclear whether the payouts will be sufficient to pay for the long-term cost of exposure to the chemicals. That is because we still don’t know the full extent of contamination, and there is growing evidence that the problem is massive. For example, NRDC has just come out with a report estimating that in California alone, water systems serving some 25 million residents—over 60 percent of the state’s population—are contaminated. The levels are likely higher in other parts of the country that have been less aggressive in limiting PFAS use.

Under pressure from lawsuits, regulators and activists, many companies have been phasing out their use of the chemicals. 3M has promised to cease its use of PFAS by the end of 2025. Yet many products containing the chemicals are still being imported from countries with less restrictive practices.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused widespread harm in the Gulf of Mexico and the communities along its shores, but the scope of PFAS contamination appears to be much wider and could end up standing with global warming as the two leading environmental crises of our era.

A New Emissions Cheating Scandal

Cummins Inc. waited until just before the Christmas holiday to announce that it had “reached an agreement in principle to resolve U.S. regulatory claims regarding its emissions certification and compliance process for certain engines primarily used in pick-up truck applications.” After insisting it cooperated fully with regulators, the company went on to claim it “has seen no evidence that anyone acted in bad faith and does not admit wrongdoing.”

That vague and tortuous statement was clarified when the U.S. Justice Department put out its own release saying that Cummins was close to signing an agreement with DOJ and the State of California under which it would pay $1.7 billion to settle allegations it violated the Clean Air Act by installing defeat devices on hundreds of thousands of engines.

Cummins, which produces engines for trucks and heavy equipment, has thus joined the roster of large companies accused of installing technology meant to yield deceptive results on emissions tests and thus conceal the true amount of pollution being generated. DOJ stated that the devices installed by Cummins allowed the engines to produce thousands of tons of excess emissions of nitrogen oxides, which are linked to respiratory conditions such as asthma.

The defeat device revelations began, of course, with Volkswagen. The German automaker has paid out over $20 billion in fines and settlements around the world since the accusations of emissions cheating first emerged in 2015.

Yet there are a number of other large companies that have faced similar allegations. In 2019 Fiat Chrysler (now Stellantis) reached an agreement with federal and California regulators under which it paid over $300 million in fines and spent about $200 million to recall vehicles and make them compliant.

In 2020 Daimler AG (now the Mercedes-Benz Group) reached a similar settlement under which it agreed to pay $945 million in penalties and spend $534 million on vehicle modifications.

Automotive suppliers have also gotten caught up in the controversy. Robert Bosch has paid several hundred million dollars in settlements for its role in producing the defeat devices for Volkswagen. In 2018 IAV GmbH, a German company that designs automotive systems, pled guilty to one criminal felony count and paid a $35 million criminal fine as a result of its work for VW.

After-market companies have also been targeted. The EPA has fined dozens of small firms around the country for illegally installing defeat devices, while the DOJ has gone after some medium-sized suppliers. For example, in 2022, Allied Exhaust Systems, which sells to individuals nationwide, agreed to pay a $1.1 million penalty.

Such cases suggest a remarkable willingness of companies large and small to violate environmental regulations. These are not situations in which firms accidentally exceeded emissions limits. From Volkswagen and Cummins down to the small automotive shops, the defendants were accused of deliberately thwarting emission controls.

The use of defeat devices does not simply involve infringement of abstract standards. They cause vast amounts of extra pollution to be spewed into the air and thus represent a corporate crime against the public’s health.

Corporations Are Not Saving the Planet After All

It used to be that you had to go to the websites of groups such as Greenpeace to learn how large corporations are failing to live up to their promises to help solve the climate crisis. Now that fact can be found on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

The business-friendly newspaper just published an article detailing the ways in which the decarbonization efforts of the world’s largest companies are fizzling out. A big part of the problem is that most companies never developed meaningful climate transition plans and instead relied on dubious carbon offsets instead. The Journal quotes the environmental non-profit CDP as saying that of the nearly 19,000 companies using its disclosure platform, fewer than 100 have credible plans.

Some companies don’t bother to develop any plans—or they keep them to themselves. The Journal cites data showing the percentages of larger publicly traded companies that do not disclose specific plans to meet long-term climate targets. Among those in the coal, oilfield services, and midstream oil sectors the portion is 100 percent. Among integrated oil companies, 93 percent fail to do so.

Big Oil’s detrimental role in dealing with the climate was highlighted in another recent Journal article. It’s well known that Exxon Mobil worked for years to downplay the harmful effects of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2006 the company finally acknowledged those dangers, but the Journal found that within the company the policy did not really change. The newspaper was given access to internal company documents that had been collected by the New York Attorney General but never made public.

These documents, the Journal says, show that Rex Tillerson, who had just taken over as CEO at the time, continued to work behind the scenes to play down the severity of climate change. Exxon executives and scientists were apparently encouraged to go on questioning the mainstream consensus on climate harm.

In other words, it appeared that Exxon, rather than fully abandoning its overt climate denialism, replaced it with a more low-key version while simultaneously reaping the benefits of greenwashing.

Apart from its malignant impact on the climate problem, the fossil fuel industry also continues to be a major source of conventional pollution. We are reminded of this fact by a new report from the Center for American Progress which looks at the long-standing boondoggle surrounding the system by which the industry is allowed to drill on public lands and offshore.

Making extensive use of data from Violation Tracker, the report shows that the top 20 leasing companies are responsible for more than 2,000 environmental violations in their overall operations over the past two decades. Exxon Mobil leads the list with 442 such penalties, while BP has paid out the most—over $30 billion—largely due to its role in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

CAP’s report recommends that proposed new standards issued by the federal Bureau of Land Management for companies seeking leases be strengthened to include language specifying what defines a bad actor, adding: “Such bad actors should not be eligible for new leases or permits until they have resolved all outstanding issues and demonstrated that they are capable of changing their practices. Further, leases of companies found not to be a qualified or responsible lessee should be subject to cancellation.”

Tougher standards such as these will help to get the message through to the fossil fuel giants that they need to change their ways once and for all.

3M’s Sticky Legal Situation

For the past decade, Johnson & Johnson has symbolized the deterioration of a well-regarded consumer products corporation into the target of multiple lawsuits over alleged disregard for product safety. Now another familiar company is following the same path.

3M, best known as the producer of Scotch Brand adhesive tape and Post-it sticky notes, has been embroiled in two major lawsuits that will probably result in the payment of billions of dollars in settlements. The litigation does not involve office supplies but rather two of the thousands of other products produced by a company originally known as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.

In one of the cases, 3M has been sued by some 250,000 military veterans who accuse the company of producing foam earplugs that failed to protect them from service-related hearing loss. This stems from a 2018 False Claims Act case brought by the U.S. Justice Department in which the company paid a penalty of $9.1 million. Last year, in what is called a bellwether case, a jury awarded a single plaintiff $50 million in damages.

In an attempt to limit its wider liability, 3M filed for bankruptcy for the subsidiary, Aearo Technologies, that produced the earplugs. Lawyers for the plaintiffs cried foul, and earlier this month a federal bankruptcy judge dismissed the filing, calling it premature. 3M is appealing the dismissal, but the Wall Street Journal reports that the company is in settlement talks.

3M is also said to be deeply involved in negotiating a settlement of its other major legal woe: lawsuits accusing the company of being responsible for the contamination of water supplies with per- and polyfluoroalkyl (or PFAS) chemicals used in the production of its firefighting foam. These substances, which have been linked to numerous adverse health effects, have become known as forever chemicals because they do not break down in the human body or the environment.

A federal judge in South Carolina, where the PFAS cases have been consolidated, recently halted a bellwether trial after the parties in the wider litigation reported that a settlement seemed imminent. This was just after DuPont and its spinoff companies Chemours and Corteva announced they had agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle their own PFAS cases.

3M’s record apart from these two cases has not been entirely unblemished. In 2018 the company paid $850 million to the Minnesota Attorney General’s office to settle allegations that its disposal of perflourochemicals, or PFCs, over many years had damaged drinking water and natural resources in the Twin Cities area.

It has also been accused of antitrust violations. In 2006 the company paid over $28 million to settle litigation alleging it monopolized the market for adhesive tape. In 2011 3M paid $3 million to settle an age discrimination case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Violation Tracker contains more than 100 other penalties the company has paid in environmental, workplace safety, and employment cases.

With the earplug and PFAS cases, it appears that the company’s aggregate penalty total will soon reach a much higher level. 3M is going to have to sell a lot more Post-its.

Update: Plaintiffs’ attorneys reported that 3M has agreed to pay over $12 billion to public water systems to resolve the PFAS litigation.

Two-Faced Corporations

The new issue of Corporate Knights, a magazine which usually focuses on celebrating environmental initiatives in the business word, has a cover story with a different angle. Headlined “The Climate Blockers,” the piece highlights major companies with split personalities: They talk a good game when it comes to matters such as sustainability while directly and indirectly promoting policies that impede decarbonization.

Among the corporations deemed to be most guilty of this hypocrisy are U.S. petroleum giants Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips and U.S. utilities Sempra Energy, American Electric and Southern Company. Others on the ten-worst list are BASF, Nippon Steel, Gazprom and Toyota.

This assessment is based on the work of InfluenceMap, a UK-based non-profit which seeks to hold large corporations accountable for their climate practices. Its Climate Policy Footprint report identifies the “most negative and influential” companies globally, based on lobbying and other influence activities—whether carried out by the corporation itself or by its trade associations.

InfluenceMap also identifies the trade associations with the worst track record on climate policy. The biggest culprits are said to be the American Petroleum Institute, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and BusinessEurope.

Some of the companies on the ten-worst list are not only members of these associations but also part of their leadership. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth is also the chairman of the American Petroleum Institute. Chevron and ExxonMobil have representatives on the board of American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers. Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Sempra have representatives on the board of the U.S. Chamber.

InfluenceMap provides a vital service at a time when growing numbers of large companies are professing adherence to ESG principles—especially the environmental component—while quietly working to discourage legislators and policymakers from moving ahead on aggressive climate initiatives.

Strangely, it is also a time when rightwing public officials in the U.S. are trying to gin up public opposition to what are being labeled “woke corporations.” This effort exaggerates the significance of ESG in the business world and ignores the divergence between sustainability p.r. and regressive influence efforts.

There are actually two types of environmental hypocrisy rampant in Corporate America. Not only are purportedly enlightened companies pushing bad policies—they are failing to comply with existing environmental safeguards. This includes not only climate practices, which are not heavily regulated, but also conventional pollution.

This is part of what we document in Violation Tracker. Take, for example, the companies in the InfluenceMap ten-worst. Over the past two decades, Chevron has racked up over $1 billion in fines and settlements. These include a fine of more than $1 million in red Texas last year. ExxonMobil’s total since 2000 is more than $2 billion, including a $9.5 million settlement last year with New Jersey over PCB contamination. They are surpassed by American Electric Power, whose penalty total is nearly $5 billion.

No company that repeatedly breaks environmental laws—nor any company that uses its influence to block or slow down climate-friendly initiatives—should be able to depict itself as an environmental white knight.

The UN Calls Out Greenwashing

Thirty years ago, the United Nations shut down its Centre on Transnational Corporations. Over the prior two decades, the UNCTC had sought to shine a light on the growing influence and power of giant companies around the world, but especially in what was then called the third world.

After the UNCTC was gone, the United Nations said relatively little about corporations overall and even less of a critical nature. A new report from the international body begins to rectify that. As part of the COP27 climate conference, a group of experts convened by the Secretary-General has issued a critique of the commitments by non-state actors to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions in their operations.

Noting that many corporations with net zero pledges are still investing heavily in fossil fuels, the report calls for an end to what it does not hesitate to label as greenwashing—a term that was once used only by environmental activists. The title of the document, Integrity Matters, is a rebuff to companies that purchase dubious carbon offsets rather than making serious reductions in their own greenhouse gas emissions.

At the heart of the report are ten recommendations designed to make net zero commitments more meaningful. These include items such as setting short-term targets along with longer-term goals, engaging in better disclosure, and investing in just transitions.

But to my mind, the most important recommendation is the call for moving from voluntary pledges to enforceable rules. “Regulation is therefore needed,” the report states, “to level the playing field and transform the groundswell of voluntary commitments into ground rules for the economy overall.”

Even more promising is that the report urges cooperation among regulators in different countries to promote and enforce global standards. In fact, the document calls for the creation of a task force to convene a community of international regulators.

It is encouraging to see the United Nations take this posture. It will not be easy to get big business to move from self-serving and essentially meaningless promises to serious obligations.

Keep in mind that the phenomenon of greenwashing has been around for a long time. It was back in 1992 that the problem was first highlighted in a publication titled The Greenpeace Book of Greenwash written by environmental activist Kenny Bruno.

That report showed how corporations such as Shell were already pretending to be leaders in the effort to address global warming. Yet the deception was also taking place with regard to a slew of other environmental issues. Among the leading greenwashers cited by Bruno were General Motors, Westinghouse, Sandoz and DuPont.

Perhaps the most brazen of these was DuPont, which sought to divert attention from the extensive harm its chlorofluorocarbon products did to the ozone layer by running a series of television ads in which animals were made to look like they were applauding the company’s environmental initiatives while Beethoven’s Ode to Joy played in the background.

The lesson then, as today, is that large corporations will go to great lengths to give the impression that they are a key part of the solution when it comes to the environment, when in fact they are major contributors to the problem and will continue to do so until they are forced to change.

Culpable 26

COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference now taking place in Glasgow, is primarily a gathering of governments. The idea is that political leaders from around the world can come together to make commitments that will address one of the most pressing problems confronting the human race.

The ability of nations to make substantial progress is, however, increasingly in question. European countries are reported to be worried that measures resulting in higher energy prices could prompt a populist backlash like the Yellow Vest movement in France. The ability of the U.S. Congress to enact significant climate legislation remains uncertain.

Moreover, the parties which are most responsible for the climate crisis are not governments or the people they represent, but rather the giant corporations whose operations and products account for a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps we should spend more time talking about the Culpable 26, or whatever number of major polluters we deem to be most worthy of castigation.

Identifying the worst climate culprits is complicated by the fact that many of them are claiming to be part of the solution rather than the problem. They tout their efforts to reduce emissions and many even claim to be moving toward net-zero.

There are several problems with these claims. The first is the “net” part. Many companies will end up focusing more on carbon offsets than reducing their emissions substantially.

The second is that the target dates they are setting are well into the future. The Net Zero Tracker lists about 575 large publicly traded corporations as having commitments to net zero or related goals. Of those, more than half set their target date at 2050 or later. They are giving themselves three decades to respond substantively to what amounts to a global emergency.

The third problem is that progress toward these goals will likely be measured by the corporations themselves. Self-reporting is pervasive in the world of corporate social responsibility and ESG, putting into question the entire enterprise.

After all, many of the companies vowing to meet climate goals have abysmal track records when it comes to regulatory compliance. Take the example of Royal Dutch Shell, the largest industrial company with a net zero commitment (by 2050).

As shown in Violation Tracker, Shell has racked up more than $875 million in environmental penalties from federal, state and local regulators in the United States alone. That shows the extent to which the company and its subsidiaries have run roughshod over pollution regulations.

Shell’s Violation Tracker page also shows hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties for other offenses such as accounting fraud (overstating its petroleum reserves) and false claims (underpaying royalties on oil produced under federal leases). In other words, Shell has a history not only of environmental misconduct but also of deceiving shareholders and the federal government.

Shell is far from unique in this regard. Many companies have a track record of deception. Self-reporting is not a reliable basis to determine whether big business is really reducing its damage to the climate.

Violation Tracker UK has Arrived

The United Kingdom, which holds the presidency of this year’s United Nations climate conference, made the wise decision to bar fossil fuel companies from being corporate sponsors of the event. This is not to say, however, that the UK is generally tough on industries that harm the environment.

That’s one of the findings from the data collected in Violation Tracker UK, a database of business misconduct my colleagues and I at the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First have just launched. We assembled 63,000 cases dating back to 2010 from more than 40 regulatory agencies. Among those are the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency.

Altogether, we identified nearly 6,000 cases in which a company was found to have committed an environmental offense. Yet in more than half of these, the culprits were not required to pay any sort of monetary penalty and instead were let off with a caution.

Among those environmental cases with a fine or settlement, the aggregate penalties were just £312 million. The penalties exceeded £1 million in just a dozen cases; in only 135 instances were they above £100,000. Many of the larger environmental penalties involved privatized water companies, which should be fined even more heavily, given the frequency with which they break the rules.

These numbers stand in stark contrast to the totals for competition-related offenses and financial offenses. There are fewer cases in those categories—a total of about 2,200—but the penalties have been substantially higher, totaling £5.2 billion for competition cases and £2.8 billion for financial ones. In those categories combined there have been 285 penalties of £1 million or more, and 716 above £100,000.

The UK’s use of monetary penalties also lags when it comes to safety-related offenses, including workplace safety as well as product, healthcare and transportation safety. This category accounts for just £413 million in penalties. The aggregate fines and settlements for environmental and safety offenses combined is only one-tenth that of competition and financial offenses. The other categories covered by Violation Tracker UK—employment-related offenses and consumer protection cases—fall in between.

Like the U.S. Violation Tracker on which it is modeled, Violation Tracker UK identifies which of the entities named in the individual cases are linked to larger parent companies. The UK parent universe numbers more than 650, both publicly traded and privately held. The parents are headquartered in more than 30 countries. After the UK, parents based in the United States account for the largest number of cases and the highest penalty total.

As in the United States, the list of companies with the highest penalty totals in Violation Tracker UK contains numerous big banks, both domestic and foreign. Three of those banks are the only corporations to appear among the ten most penalized companies on both trackers: JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and UBS. Other types of large, publicly traded corporations also feature prominently in the UK rankings. Companies in the FTSE 100 account for more than one-quarter of the Violation Tracker UK monetary penalty total.

Big business does not behave any better in Britain than it does in the United States.