[Search for users]
[Overall Top Noters]
[List of all Conferences]
[Download this site]
| Title: | BAGELS and other things of Jewish interest |
| Notice: | 1.0 policy, 280.0 directory, 32.0 registration |
| Moderator: | SMURF::FENSTER |
|
| Created: | Mon Feb 03 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Thu Jun 05 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1524 |
| Total number of notes: | 18709 |
1318.0. "Baxter and the boycott" by CRLVMS::SEIDMAN () Fri Mar 26 1993 21:16
Today's Wall Street Journal (26 March) has a front-page story on Baxter
International, Inc., the world's largest hospital supply company, which
became the first company to plead guilty of violating the U. S. law
against cooperating with the Arab boycott of Israel. According to the
article, Baxter merged with American Hospital Supply Co. in 1985 and
shortly after that a senior VP was given the job of getting the company
off the Arab blacklist. At the time they had a production unit in
Israel, which, I presume, is how they got on the blacklist in the first
place. Somewhat fortuitously, an Israeli firm offered to buy the
factory and they accepted. If that were all that had happened there
would have been no problem. What came next was a series of actions
carried on through a Swiss subsidiary that involved considerable
correspondence with Syrian authorities and included a promise not to
deliver modern technology or do business with Israel.
What did them in was that the head of one of their divisions, who knew
about this effort, was fired and apparently thought he had been treated
unfairly, so he told the Commerce Department about it. This eventually
led to the prosecution of the company. Its decision to plead guilty
to one charge rather than go to trial is thought to be an attempt to
avoid having even more information becoming public.
On a positive note, National Public Radio carried a story in which one
person interviewed claimed that since the Gulf War, Saudi Arabia had
ceased making any attempt to collect boycott data from potential
suppliers.
Maybe things are changing.
| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 1318.1 | our customer? | FROZEN::CHERSON | the door goes on the right | Fri Mar 26 1993 22:08 | 5 |
| Hmm, isn't Baxter a large customer of ours?
I wouldn't get too carried away with enthusiasm...just yet.
--David
|
| 1318.2 | Boycott is still flourishing | EMDS::COHEN | | Mon Mar 29 1993 20:28 | 8 |
| I too believe it is a bit early to celebrate the boycotts end. If you
recall after operation Desert Storm, Kuwait (you remember the poor
folks overrun by Iraqis) promised to drop the Israeli boycott.
Well they did stop for a while, but have as recently as only a
month ago been chastised by the U.S. State department for once
again invoking the boycott as part of "doing business as usual".
Ron
|