Another year – and another BHP Billiton AGM, held in London on October 29 2009. This year the company more than ever boasted of its continual march to world domination (or at least, domination of the mining industry); as well as a sage-like ability to guess everything correctly. BHP Billiton chairman, Don Argus, fired off what seemed like a never-ending salvo on why the company’s wunder-CEO, Marius Kloppers, deserved his enormous pay-packet. (In real terms this had been frozen – even if he was still earning enough to buy himself the odd bankrupted bank or two).
See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=9600.
Protests held in Australia
Protests were held in Perth, Australia, to concide with BHP Billiton’s London AGM.
See http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=148189.
Alternative report
BHP Billiton, the world’s largest diversified resources company – producing oil as well as coal, copper, diamonds, iron ore, manganese, nickel, uranium and a number of other minerals – boasts of a strong reputation for corporate responsibility. Communities affected by its operations may well believe that such a reputation is unjustified. But at its London AGM on 29 October, the company failed to engage seriously with its critics, simply assuring them that their concerns would be investigated – even though the company has already been made aware of them time and time again. The company’s annual report, available on its corporate website, paints a very positive picture of the company’s operations. Many of the company’s critics have produced an alternative report, putting the other side of the picture.
Read the alternative report at http://www.piplinks.org/system/files/BHP+Billiton+Alternative+Report.pdf.