Word: olin
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...longer wander in late because of railroad tie-ups, and they tend to stay to clean up the day's work rather than flee at the stroke of 5 p.m. to catch the next train. Some firms have even been able to lengthen their formal work week. The Olin Corp., whose 1969 move from Manhattan to Stamford led off the exodus to Fairfield County, cut its lunch period from one hour to half an hour; Union Carbide, which now works its employees seven hours a day in New York City, will adopt an eight-hour day next year when...
When Federal Judge Robert Zampano pondered what to do about the Olin Corp., charged with illegally selling arms to the Republic of South Africa, his solution was what he called a "creative" punishment. Instead of imposing the maximum $510,000 fine on Olin, which pleaded nolo contendere to the charge, he instructed the corporation to donate that amount to charities in New Haven, Conn., where Olin's Winchester Group is situated. "Reparations to the people of the community," he called it, stating, "The court believes that additional steps must be applied on the local level for re-establishing...
...solution is not without parallel. In 1976 Allied Chemical was fined $13.2 million for polluting the James River; after the sum was reduced to $5 million by the federal judge who assessed the fine, the company contributed $8 million to set up the Virginia Environmental Endowment. But the Olin case raises some questions about the proper exercise of judicial discretion. Had the judge merely fined Olin for violating the anti-apartheid arms ban, the $510,000 would have wound up in the federal treasury. Do the people of New Haven have any more right to the money, asked some observers...
Still, applying a constructive or creative sentence to a corporation is not easy. Often the fine for a misdeed is less than the profits to be made from wrongdoing, while really severe fines can punish stockholders as much as culpable executives. In the Olin case, where the victims arguably range from those workers at the Winchester plant who are concerned about apartheid, to all U.S. citizens embarrassed by Olin's arms sale, to South African blacks themselves, deciding who deserves restitution is difficult. As far as Columbia Law Professor Walter Werner is concerned, Zampano's decision...
Bizarre as the Olin case is, the Citibank no-loan decision probably is more significant. A Senate report identifies Citibank as one of eleven U.S. banks that have made most of the $2.2 billion in U.S. loans now outstanding to South Africa. Citibank did not trumpet its decision; it broke the news in a proxy statement to shareholders, quietly adding that it is continuing to lend "selectively, to constructive private sector activities that create jobs and which benefit all South Africans." It did not say what guidelines it would follow to make sure its loans achieved a multiracial purpose. Nonetheless...