Corporate Integrity Project

NLPC seeks to promote integrity in corporate governance, including honesty and fair play in relationships with shareholders, employees, business partners and customers. In doing so, NLPC places special emphasis on:

* Asserting that the social responsibility of the corporation is to defend and advance the interests of the people who own the company, the shareholders. True responsibility is fidelity to one’s own mission, not someone else’s, or someone else’s political agenda.

* Exposing the seeking of influence on public officials by corporations, which is the inevitable result of high levels of government spending and intervention in the marketplace.

* Combating practices that undermine the free enterprise system, including philanthropic giving to groups hostile to a free economy.

Larry Fink’s Appeasement of Climate Activists is Failing

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Fink/IMAGE: YouTube

For all the boasts and claims that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has made in recent years about the need for corporate “accountability” with regard to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities, and that they are a better long-term investment prospect, he has consistently fallen short in the eyes of experts who evaluate those things.

First there was the academic study released in August that found that despite claims to the contrary by major financial firms – including BlackRock – that ESG factors did notinoculate investors against the stock market downturn that was attributed to the COVID crash of the global economy, nor did sustainability priorities aid in the subsequent limited recovery.

And now it turns out that one of BlackRock’s non-profiting investment priorities ballyhooed by Fink – climate change – is not all he cracks it up to be.

A report released last month by … Read More ➡

Not Content to Censor Conservatives, Zuckerberg Now Seeks to Meddle in Election

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Mark Zuckerberg

It didn’t take long after Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed that free speech would reign on Facebook– and specifically that political candidates would not have their posts removed or altered ahead of the 2020 elections – for him to renege.

The company announced earlier this month it would ban any new political ads during the week leading up to the Nov. 3rd election. But Facebook has continued its censorship throughout the year, despite Zuckerberg’s declaration last fall.

And Zuckerberg seems more-than-prepared to meddle in the election and its results before, during, and after the results come in. While he does not appear to support any political candidates or PACs this cycle (his name doesn’t show up in campaign finance reports, unlike in the past), he and the Silicon Valley leftists in his employ wield Facebook’s potent platform to amplify messages they want to give wider attention to, … Read More ➡

Disney Partners With Chinese Communists on Mulan Movie

Posted on by Paul Chesser
‘Mulan’ publicity photo/Disney

The long list of corporations and organizations “woke”-en by the Black Lives Matter/”systemic racism” narrative – but that blind themselves to China’s human rights abuses and therefore do business with the communists there – continues to grow.

The rush to virtue-signal for BLM already seemed to include almost every major corporation following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake, in their confrontations with police. Even Chick-fil-A’s CEO projected his own white guilt onto fellow evangelical Christians, calling for them to “repent.” Yet tears for those under the boot of the ChiComs are largely missing.

Now we’ve got a major corporation – Disney – who worked closely with the local Chinese government agencies that are running re-education camps that imprison Uighurs, a Muslim-minority group. The BBC reported on Monday that the current release of the live-action “Mulan” was filmed in Xinjiang, where as … Read More ➡

‘LeBron’s Silence is Helping the Chinese Regime’

Posted on by Peter Flaherty

Tom Anderson, director of NLPC’s Government Integrity Project, is interviewed on NewsMax TV about the group’s social media ads targeting LeBron James and the National Basketball Association for hypocrisy on China. Tom also comments on the Big 10 football season.… Read More ➡

Ads Target NBA and LeBron James on China Hypocrisy

Posted on by NLPC Staff

Through its Freedom4China campaign, the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) is running social media ads targeting LeBron James and the National Basketball Association (NBA). The online ads are directed to the bubble at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, where the NBA season is currently underway.

The ads state “Not All Heroes Are 6’9” with an image of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James. Clicking through, the viewer is brought to a page highlighting the heroism of the Tiananmen Square “Tank Man.” It reads:

Tank Man’s name is not known, nor is his fate.

Tank Man was filmed in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989, stepping in front of a column of 59 tanks. The day before, the Peoples’s Liberation Army crushed student-led, pro-democracy protests. The death toll is estimated from several hundred to several thousand.

The footage of the Tank Man is widely regarded as one of … Read More ➡

Study Debunks BlackRock Claims that ESG Funds Did Better During COVID

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Larry Fink

So-called environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities, as applied to investment principles, have seen a massive influx of cash during the COVID-19 pandemic – so much so that influential financial firm leaders have celebrated them as better performers than normal “make-a-profit” funds.

But is that really true?

Mega-firm BlackRock and CEO Larry Fink have called greater attention to ESG, beginning early in 2018 with a letter to more than 1,000 publicly traded companies urging them to elevate issues such as climate change and diversity higher in their considerations as they go about their business.

“Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose,” he wrote. “To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”

CNBC reported earlier this month that the amount of assets in funds that follow ESG … Read More ➡

Chinese Companies Get Scrutiny— But Not From BlackRock

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Steve Mnuchin/IMAGE: YouTube

Pressure continues to increase on Chinese corporations that are listed on American stock exchanges, to provide greater transparency about their ownership and operations.

Following the U.S. Senate’s passage (by unanimous consent) in May of the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, a special panel of top government financial regulators issued a report last week that also called for tougher rules in order for “non-cooperative” foreign companies to be allowed to be listed in the United States. The goal is to provide greater protection for investors in those companies, to meet minimal audit and transparency standards so that potential risks are better understood.

The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets specifically scrutinized the risks to investors posed by the Chinese government’s failure to allow access to the books of companies listed in the U.S.  The group urged the Securities and Exchange Commission take steps to strengthen the listing standards.… Read More ➡

NBC Asked to Correct Fake Account of Trump Reaction to Shooting

Posted on by NLPC Staff

Today, the National Legal and Policy Center called upon NBC News and its White House Correspondent Kristen Welker to correct a blatantly false account of President Trump’s reaction yesterday at his press conference following the shooting that occurred near the White House, where he was escorted from the podium by Secret Service to the Oval Office.

When he returned several minutes later to the podium, there was a flurry of questions by the reporters as to what had occurred, whether he was escorted to the secure bunker in the White House, and other questions about the incident to which the president calmly responded with the basic information that was known to him.

One of the reporters, Kristen Welker, White House Correspondent for NBC News asked the following question at the 6:57 minute mark of the press conference:

Q. Kristen Welker: “Are you rattled at all by this Mr. President?”
A. … Read More ➡

ESPN Exposes, Then Hides, Report on Abusive NBA Training Academies in China

Posted on by Paul Chesser
Adam Silver/IMAGE: CNN via YouTube

The “woke” NBA – whose players (with few exceptions) wouldn’t stand for the Star-Spangled Banner but do stand human rights abuses in China – had a bumpy reopening last week following this year’s shutdown due to COVID-19.

So did one of its top broadcast partners, ESPN.

As Breitbart (aggregating reports from Outkick.com and The Athletic) reported on Sunday, NBA/ESPN saw its television ratings drop on Friday night following the numbers the league saw on the night of its return from dormancy on Thursday. The sports-starved American public apparently doesn’t have an appetite for millionaire athletes complaining about “systemic racism” while they kneel for the National Anthem and at the same time refuse to decry human rights abuses by the communist Chinese.

Meanwhile ESPN reported about the NBA’s involvement with a training academy in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, where millions of Uigher Muslims … Read More ➡

BlackRock Threatens U.S. Firms While Coddling Chinese Polluters

Posted on by Paul Chesser

Apparently true to its word – or at least virtue-signaling a head fake in that direction – mega-investor BlackRock put some companies in its portfolio on notice that their efforts to address transparency and mitigation regarding “climate change” are insufficient.

The $6.5 trillion firm announced earlier this week in a report that it had warned 244 of those companies that they insufficiently address climate concerns, and that it had voted against resolutions and directors at 53 of them because of those shortcomings. It warned the other 191 companies they “risk voting action in 2021 if they do not make substantial progress,” according to the Financial Times.

BlackRock first announced its plans to increase scrutiny of its investments, with regard to climate, in January.

Some of the names on BlackRock’s naughty list include fossil fuel-concentrated industries like ExxonMobil, Volvo, Daimler, and coal company Peabody Energy.

“Our approach on climate issues, … Read More ➡