Barclays Leads Field for Shame Award

The anti-poverty campaign group, the World Development Movement, has nominated Barclays Bank for the 2012 Public Eye ’shame award’. The nomination is for the bank’s financial speculation on food prices which, says the WDM, increases global hunger and poverty. The bank has been shortlisted and is currently leading the field of six in the online poll with 618 votes against nearest rival Samsung’s 518. Other nominees are: Syngenta, Tepco, Vale and Freeport.

Barclays is the biggest UK company trading food’futures’ and is estimated to make a third of a billion pounds a year from the activity. According to the WDM, speculative trade in food futures nearly doubled in the last five years. The speculation creates spikes in food prices, driving the cost of living ever higher.

Barclays has ignored campaigns to put the basic human need for food before profit, despite CEO Bob Diamond’s response to the Occupy movement in which told the BBC last November that banks must be “better citizens”.

The WDM believes that speculation on food prices is reckless, unsustainable and ill-conceived. “Governments must take action to curb it,” said a WDM spokesperson. The US has already moved to regulate food markets, and campaigners are supporting EU measures now under consideration to curb speculation on food by banks and hedge funds. The UK government, however, is blocking attempts to introduce effective European legislation.

Online voting begins today for the ‘people’s award’, while a panel of judges will chose a winner for the ‘global’ award. The winners will be announced on 27 January in Davos, Switzerland, to coincide with the World Economic Forum.

The Public Eye Awards are run by Greenpeace Switzerland and the Berne Declaration.

Cast your vote here: http://www.publiceye.ch/en/vote/

Share

Hide Sites