Chiquita Brands International

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chiquita Brands International
Type	Public (NYSE: CQB)
Founded	1871
Headquarters	Cincinnati, Ohio
Key people	Fernando Aguirre, President & CEO
Industry	Agriculture
Products	Food, Bananas
Revenue	▲$4.668 Billion USD (2007)
Net income	▲$4.613 Billion USD (2007)
Employees	10,000 (2007 est)
Website	www.chiquita.com

Chiquita Brands International Inc. is a Cincinnati, Ohio-based producer and distributor of bananas and other produce, under a variety of subsidiary brand names, collectively known as Chiquita. Chiquita is the successor to the United Fruit Company and is the leading distributor of bananas in the United States. The company also owns a German produce distribution company, Atlanta AG, which it acquired in 2003. Chiquita was formerly controlled by Cincinnati billionaire Carl H. Lindner, Jr., his majority ownership of the company ended as a result of Chiquita Brands International exiting a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 19, 2002. In 1969 it was bought by Zapata Corporation an enterprise related with George H. W. Bush. The enterprise changed its name to Chiquita Brands and operates with that name to this day.

Contents 1 Chiquita Banana 2 History 3 The Cincinnati Enquirer controversy 4 Protection payments to paramilitary groups 5 Ongoing workers' rights violations 6 Use in fiction 7 References 8 Bibliography 9 See also 10 External links

[edit] Chiquita Banana

The trademark logo mascot, Chiquita Banana, was created by Dik Browne, who is best known for his Hägar the Horrible comic strip. 1940s vocalist Patti Clayton was the original 1944 voice of Chiquita Banana, followed by Elsa Miranda, June Valli and Monica Lewis.

[edit] History

Chiquita Brands International Inc. was formed in 1871 by U.S. railroad entrepreneur Henry Meiggs as the United Fruit Company. In 1970 it became the United Brands Company. And in 1985 it became Chiquita Brands International.

In 1975, an SEC invesitgation revealed that the company had bribed the Honduran President (dictator): Oswaldo López Arellano and Italian officials. The scandal was named Bananagate.

In the 1980s, the company (then known as United Brands Company) was involved in a leading Competition Law case when they were found to abuse their dominant position in the banana and fruit supply markets by the European Commission.

[edit] The Cincinnati Enquirer controversy

On May 3, 1998, The Cincinnati Enquirer published an eighteen-page section, "Chiquita Secrets Revealed". Written by Enquirer investigative reporters Michael Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter, the articles accused the company of mistreating the workers on its Central American plantations, polluting the environment, allowing cocaine to be brought to the United States on its ships, bribing foreign officials, evading foreign nations' laws on land ownership, forcibly preventing its workers from unionizing, and a host of other misdeeds.

Chiquita denied all the allegations, suing after it was revealed that Gallagher had repeatedly hacked into Chiquita's voice-mail system (no evidence ever indicated that McWhirter was aware of Gallagher's crime or a participant). A special prosecutor was appointed to investigate—the elected prosecutor having ties to Carl Lindner, Jr.. On June 28, 1998, the Enquirer retracted the entire series of stories, published a front-page apology, and paid the company a multi-million-dollar settlement. The Columbia Journalism Review would report both $14 million and $50 million for the amount.^{[citation needed]} Chiquita's Annual Report mentions 'a cash settlement in excess of $10 million'. One of the reporters, Gallagher, would be fired and prosecuted and the paper's editor, Lawrence K. Beaupre, would be transferred to the Gannett's headquarters amid allegations that he ignored the paper's usual procedures on fact-checking in order to win a Pulitzer Prize. Chiquita has not formally challenged any of the factual claims raised in the original articles.

[edit] Protection payments to paramilitary groups

See also: Colombian armed conflict and Doe v. Chiquita Brands International

On March 14, 2007, Chiquita Brands was fined $25 million as part of a settlement with the United States Justice Department for having ties to Colombian paramilitary groups. According to court documents, between 1997 and 2004, officers of a Chiquita subsidiary paid approximately $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the AUC, in exchange for local, employee protection in Colombia's volatile banana harvesting zone. Similar payments were also made to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as well as the National Liberation Army (ELN) from 1989 to 1997.^[1][2] All three of these groups are on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

On March 19, 2007, Chiquita Brands admitted in federal court that the subsidiary company (which was subsequently sold) paid Colombian terrorists to protect employees at its most profitable banana-growing operation. As part of a deal with prosecutors, the company pleaded guilty to one count of doing business with a terrorist organization. In exchange, the company will pay a $25-million fine and court documents will not reveal the identities of the group of senior executives who approved the illegal protection payments.^[2]

Chiquita currently faces serious charges in a lawsuit issued in June 2007. According to the attorney of 173 family members of victims of the AUC militia this could be the biggest terrorist case in history and may put Chiquita out of business. "Terry Collingsworth, a lawyer with International Rights Advocates who is leading the multi-million dollar litigation, said: "This is a landmark case, maybe the biggest terrorism case in history. In terms of casualties, it's the size of three World Trade Center attacks."^[3]

Nonetheless, despite reaching a deal with US prosecutors, Chiquita Brands International still may have to face criminal charges in Colombia, which could even include the extradition of some of its current and former board members. Specifically, on December 7, 2007, “the 29th Specialized District Attorney’s Office in Medellín called the board members of Chiquita […] to make statements concerning charges for conspiracy to commit an aggravated crime and financing illegal armed groups. The court order mentions Robert Fisher, Steven G. Wars, Carl H. Linder, Durk Jaguer, Jeffrey Benjamin, Morten Amtzen, Roderick Hills (former committee director of Chiquita), Cyrus F. Freidheim (former general director and currently president of an important media group), and Robert Olson, former legal counsel. The nine of them, according to the initial data obtained by the Attorney General’s Office, knew of the illegal operation through which 1.7 million dollars were transferred to the AUC, a charge to which Chiquita has already admitted and for which the US justice system fined it 25 millions dollars.” ^[4]

[edit] Ongoing workers' rights violations

In May 2007, the French NGO "Peuples Solidaires" publicly accused the Compañia Bananera Atlántica Limitada (COBAL), a Chiquita subsidiary, of knowingly violating its workers' basic rights and endangering their families health and their own. Allegedly, the banana firm has carelessly exposed laborers at the Coyol plantation in Costa Rica to highly toxic pesticides on multiple occasions. Additionally, the human rights group accuses the company of using a private militia to intimidate workers. Finally, Peuples Solidaires claims that Chiquita, despite a regional agreement between the company and local unions requiring prompt investigation of grievances, has ignored certain union complaints for more than a year.^[5]

[edit] Use in fiction

Several authors have used the operations of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) as inspiration for fiction works. The most important ones are One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, Green Pope by Miguel Angel Asturias, La Casa Grande by Alvaro Cepeda Samudio, and the poem "United Fruit Company" by Pablo Neruda included in his epic work Canto General. Garcia Marquez, Asturias, and Neruda were awarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature. According to some studies, the work Nostromo by Joseph Conrad was also inspired by the United Fruit Company. Another author in Costa Rica, Carlos Luis Fallas, wrote "Mamita Yunai[2]" (United=Yunai).

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Bender, Nicholas (May/June 2001). "Banana report". Columbia Journalism Review. 
• Frantz, Douglas. "After apology, issues raised in Chiquita articles remain", The New York Times, July 17, 1998, pp. A1, A14. 
• Frantz, Douglas. "Mysteries behind story's publication", The New York Times, July 17, 1998, p. A14. 
• Stein, Nicholas (September/October 1998). "Banana peel". Columbia Journalism Review. 
• Mike Gallagher & Cameron McWhirter, "Chiquita SECRETS Revealed," Cincinnati Enquirer, May 3, 1998.
• "The Business and Human Rights Management Report—Chiquita Brands International," Ethical Corporate Magazine, Nov. 2004.
• Bucheli, Marcelo (2005). Bananas and Business: The United Fruit Company in Colombia: 1899-2000. New York: New York University Press. 
• Bucheli, Marcelo (July 2008). "Multinational Corporations, Totalitarian Regimes, and Economic Nationalism: United Fruit Company in Central America, 1899-1975". Business History 50 (4): 433-454. 

• Bucheli, Marcelo (November 2005). "Banana Wars Maneuvers". Harvard Business Review 83 (11): 22-24. 
• Bucheli, Marcelo, “The United Fruit Company in Latin America: Business Strategies in a Changing Environment”, in Jones, Geoffrey & Wadhwani, R. Daniel, Entrepreneurship and Global Capitalism, vol. 2, Cheltenham (UK): Edward Elgar, 2006, pp. 342-383 .
• Bucheli, Marcelo (Summer 2004). "Enforcing Business Contracts in South America: The United Fruit Company and the Colombian Banana Planters in the Twentieth-Century". Business History Review 78 (2): 181-212. 
• Bucheli, Marcelo & Read, Ian, “Banana Boats and Baby Food: The Banana in U.S. History”, in Topik, Steven; Marichal, Carlos & Frank, Zephyr, From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500-2000, Durham: Duke University Press, 2006, <http://books.google.com/books?id=mnvBYQqpJbQC&dq=from+silver+to+cocaine&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0> .
• Bucheli, Marcelo, “United Fruit Company in Latin America”, in Moberg, Mark & Striffler, Steve, Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas, Durham: Duke University Press, 2003, <http://books.google.com/books?id=Fv2VH9LGQqoC&dq=banana+wars&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0> .
• Bucheli, Marcelo, “United Fruit Company”, in Geisst, Charles, Encyclopedia of American Business History, London: Facts on File, 2005 .
• Bucheli, Marcelo, “United Fruit Company”, in McCusker, John, History of World Trade Since 1450, New York: Macmillan, 2004 .
• Taylor, Gary; Patricia Sharlin (2004). Smart Alliance: How a Global Corporation and Environmental Activists Transformed a Tarnished Brand. New Haven: Yale University Press. 
• "The Importance of Corporate Responsibility," Economist Intelligence Unit, Jan. 2005.
• "Chiquita Brands: A Turnaround That Is Here to Stay," Winslow Environmental News, January 2004.
• "The banana giant that found its gentle side," Financial Times, Dec. 2002
• '"Chiquita Wins Raves for Outstanding Sustainability Reporting," Greenbiz.com, April 3, 2003

[edit] See also

• Union of Banana Exporting Countries
• One Hundred Years of Solitude
• United Fruit Company

[edit] External links

• Chiquita Brands International offical site
• United Fruit Historical Society: This site contains a detailed chronology of the history of Chiquita, biographies of the company's main protagonists, and an extensive bibliography.