Corporate Watch

Corporate Watch (The Corporate Watch Co-Operative Ltd.) is a research group based in the UK. It describes itself as a "research group that helps people stand up against corporations and capitalism." And as a "not-for-profit co-operative providing critical information on the social and environmental impacts of corporations and capitalism." It was established in 1996.
Corporate Watch is run as a workers' co-operative. It is incorporated as a company, limited by guarantee, and registered in the United Kingdom, number 03865674.
Corporate Watch has two main research approaches:
Corporate Watch encourages "individuals and groups to contact us with information and requests about companies they think need looking into."
Corporate Watch also provides training and resources so that more people can learn how to investigate companies. These include:
A core strand of Corporate Watch's work has been investigating landlords and property developers in support of tenants' groups and people opposing the "gentrification" of their neighbourhoods. Examples include:
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 Corporate Watch published two series of articles and reports on "#CoronaCapitalism" and "Vaccine Capitalism". The "Covid Capitalism" articles investigated companies profiting from the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, including outsourcing companies winning UK government contracts with little scrutiny. An article "Six ways that capitalism spreads the crisis" argued that the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, and responses to it, were closely connected to structures of global capitalism.
The "Vaccine capitalism" series looked at the profits being forecast by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. Corporate Watch argued that these companies were making "huge profits" from vaccine sales, even though most R&D into the vaccines was heavily subsidised by public funds. (It included AstraZeneca in this critique, arguing that the company's claims to be forgoing profits from its vaccine were hollow in several respects.) It identified the source of these high profits in the intellectual property system that allows major corporations to patent drugs such as vaccines.
Corporate Watch produces research in support of migrant campaigns, and groups opposing immigration raids, immigration detention and deportations. In particular, it produces regular reports on the companies profiteering from the UK's "Border Regime". These include:
Corporate Watch's book The UK Border Regime, published in 2018, brings together much of the group's research on this area. It outlines how the UK immigration authorities work together as part of an overall "regime" with private sector contractors and collaborators, and also other players including lobby groups and media outlets pushing anti-migration messages.
Some recent reports have looked at:
Research by Corporate Watch is often reused by news outlets, and some Corporate Watch investigations are co-published with commercial media outlets. Examples include:
Corporate Watch also publishes books, all of which are copyright free or licensed under Creative Commons licenses, and can be downloaded from the website.
A list of other Corporate Watch publications can be found here