Home | Friday 18th April 2008 | Issue 629

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AND FINALLY

Red faces all round amongst the management of American retail predator ‘Wal-Mart’ (owners of ASDA in the UK) – and not just ‘cos they’ve been drinking trebles all round to celebrate their latest expansion. Well actually, if they have, that could be the problem because evidence of their backroom shenanigans may be about to go public.

Back in the 70’s, Walmart hired a small video company in Kansas to record all the company’s meetings for internal archival purposes – presumably a fairly incriminating library of corporate corruption, callousness and crude behaviour.

Then, in 2006 it fired the firm, Flagler – but without checking the deal’s small print, or lack of it. In fact the company had no written contract at all and, therefore, no ownership rights to any of the footage as copyright law, by default, gives all rights to whoever recorded it.

After negotiations for Walmart to buy the rights back stalled - Flager had asked for the cheeky sum of $150,000,000, Wal-mart countered with $500,000, Flager agreed to go to a mere $145,000,000 (some gap to bridge there then!) - Flager are now responding by making the footage available to all-comers.

The archive offers a rare inside view of the workings of a multinational ethic-lite corporate profit-machine – and makes intersting watching for people with a grudge against the mega-supermarket chain. Lawyers for unions and private cases like sexual discrimination have been first in the queue, eager for the damning candid camerawork of things like a senior manager parading around in drag, others mocking women and top executives in full'n'frank discussions about corporate strategy and hiring practices.

It would surely be a goldmine for an activist documentary maker – shame the video scoundrels want $250 hour for access...

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