Communication in business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Communication in business - Essay Example BASF is headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany3. II. Aspect of BASF social performance: Verbund BASF always prided itself with its â€Å"Verbund† philosophy which meant total integration strategy which provided the company a competitive edge by improving its efficiency by restructuring4. One of the aspect of Verbund for instance is how they used byproducts of their production which could have been discarded as waste as an input for other production. Concretely is how BASF ingeniously capture heat energy into its plants and convert it into power to drive other machines in their plants5. Verbund has also allowed BASF to extend itself to a wide array of product lines with a well diversified revenue portfolio that brings in stability in the company while catering to a broader customer base6. But this concept of Verbund or integration which is the core of BASF corporate philosophy might have been taken into excess because it has been sued 35 class actions for price fixing in violat ion of the Anti-trust Law the United States. In the same vein, it was also sued in the United Kingdom for infringement of Fair Trade Policy (UK’s equivalent for Antitrust) for unethically â€Å"integrating† with other companies to the point of collusion that retards the mechanism of the market. III. Details of the case against BASF It is quite bothersome for a huge company such as BASF which is considered to be the largest chemical company in the world has 35 class action suit filed against it in the United States alone7. It indicates that there is something wrong with the company’s business practices. If it was only several cases, it could have been dismissed as a nuisance, but with 35 class action suits, the cases are worth to look at because it appears to be a business trend which is not exactly ideal. The cases hurled against BASF are serious that ranged from unfair company practice such as violation on anti-trust laws on price fixing, to exposing its employ ees to contaminated chemicals in the production of its fertilizers. Both allegations are serious offenses for it boils down to unfair business practice and total disregard for its employees’ safety and well-being. The lawsuit begun in 2004 when BASF together with Huntsman, Bayer, Dow and LyondellBasell were accused of price fixing. They were accused of price fixing â€Å"propylene  oxide (PO)-based polyether  polyols; methyl di-p-phenylene isocyanate (MDI); and  toluene  di-isocyanate (TDI) that were purchased from 1 January 1999 through 31 December 20048†. All of the parties that were accused opted to settle out of court with BASF offering a settlement amount of $51 million. It denied guilt to price fixing and justified that it was settling to save itself with the cost of a dragged litigation and the distraction of court hearing that will bother the company. This may have been approved by the Department of Justice in December of 2011 but still, the company is still facing a separate price fixing lawsuit from its isocyanates customers9.   Apparently, BASF has also a Fair Trading (Antitrust version in United Kingdom) case in UK which indicates that their alleged price fixing practices are not isolated in the US10. In Brazil, BASF together with Shell also faced class lawsuits and was in fact convicted to pay damages to its former employees. The class lawsuit was about contaminating its â€Å"