Multinational companies

The giant multinational corporation Bayer is selling off the Dr. Scholl’s and Coppertone brands acquired four years ago when the company bought Merck. Now Bayer is looking to expand its cancer drug research and development and the agribusinesses it’s been growing since buying Monsanto earlier this year. Sounds good, but there’s a lingering problem that […]

In China, the internet is censored. You can’t get access to Google, or Facebook or Twitter unless you have a workaround known as a virtual private network. VPN technology lets users jump over the so-called Great Firewall of China. But now those jumping days could be ending. By month’s end, Beijing plans to block all VPN […]

General Electric CEO John Flannery said in an earnings call today that he was “deeply disappointed” in big liabilities found over on the company’s insurance side. GE actually sold off this business – insurance for long-term care – years ago. But turns out it’s still liable for billions of dollars’ worth of policies. Click the […]

During the next few weeks we’ll be hearing from some of the world’s largest companies about big, one-time write-downs against their financial results. Many are expected to warn that their profits will be hurt by the huge bills they have to pay to the IRS. It’s part of the new tax law. But those write-downs […]

In Italy a judge declared that two multinational oil giants — and executives — will go on trial for a major bribery case involving Nigeria. At its core, it alleges Shell and the Italian oil giant Eni paid more than a billion dollars for oil-drilling rights that were actually bribes. Click the audio player above […]