SOMO launches The Counter – a global help desk for activists challenging corporate power

We are delighted to announce that SOMO is setting up a pro bono investigations unit to help activists counter corporate power!

(Press Release English | Spanish | French | Dutch)

The Counter, which will go live in a few months, will be the global ‘help desk’ offering corporate research and company data to activists working to hold companies that cause social harms and environmental destruction to account.

SOMO has been investigating companies and providing corporate research to environmental and human rights activists for decades, but thanks to a generous grant from the Dutch Postcode Lottery, we are now able to scale up our operations and set up The Counter.

SOMO’s corporate research starts with ‘following the money’ and at The Counter we will dig into corporate and capital structures, ownership and investors, operations, finances, and governance to help build a file with evidence that can be used in an investigation, court case, or campaign. Transparency, truth, justice and remedy, is what we strive for at The Counter.

“As someone who has been digging up company data and providing corporate research for years to communities and activists bravely challenging corporate abuses, I am excited about what we will be able to achieve with The Counter. I have seen firsthand how transparency, solid evidence and a paper-trail can be radically disruptive when standing up to corporate giants.” – Roberta Cowan

Years of unregulated corporate expansion, where multinationals set up subsidiaries and shell companies around the world to expand into new markets, dodge tax, lower costs, and undermine labour standards, has resulted in countless environmental catastrophes, abuses of workers’ rights, the deliberate obfuscation of supply chains, and widespread corporate impunity.

The Counter will not only dig up vital data and corporate information, it will help strategize with activists, communities, lawyers, and journalists about using the data where it will be most effective, including in public campaigns, with regulators, in courtrooms, and in the media.

Over the next months, as we get set up and hire new staff, we will keep you posted – just sign up here for updates.

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