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MEPs told to say No to plans for corporate courts

PUBLIC-SECTOR unions urged MEPs yesterday to throw out the latest incarnation of anti-democratic corporate courts written into international trade deals.

The Public Services International (PSI) said that the investment court system in toxic EU-US trade deal TTIP would undermine nations’ labour and health laws.

It has sent its report into corporate courts to all MEPs, urging them to reject the EU’s “great corporate rebrand” of the insidious system, previously known as investor-state dispute settlement.

PSI general secretary Rosa Pavanelli said: “The European Commission’s new investment court provides foreign multinational companies with the right to sue governments for making democratic decisions in the public interest.”

Corporate courts would allow firms to sue governments for decisions that affect real or hypothetical profits — such as making laws against dangerous products or refusing to open public services to private competition.

Although TTIP is being negotiated in secret, its corporate courts clauses have come under scrutiny by the European Parliament — resulting in some cosmetic changes.

“Why are our governments giving rights to foreign corporations that local companies and local workers don’t have?” Ms Pavanelli asked.

“Allowing the most powerful corporations on the planet to take taxpayers’ money is a recipe for increased austerity and cuts to public services.”

The study reports the 2003 case of the Czech Republic being forced to pay a corporation £271 million, then the equivalent of the country’s health budget.

Ecuador has just started paying £840m to a US-based oil company — 90 per cent of its welfare budget for 2015.

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