Thread by @shreegireesh

#Thread: We @reporters_co are releasing the #CarbidePapers today.

They show how Indian governments (of all shades) knowingly helped Union Carbide, killer of over 15,000 people in Bhopal, continue its business in India for years through shell firms. While escaping prosecution.

My colleague @Kum_Sambhav and I took about two months to piece together the evidence. It all began when we first heard from a source about some internal documents of Union Carbide sitting in the US courts.

Our investigation into Carbide's post-1984 discreet modus operandi is based partly on these internal company documents.

First, what was the Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Thirty-eight years ago Carbide's Bhopal plant leaked a cocktail of lethal gasses. It killed an estimated 15,000 and left over half a million people seriously ill.

Carbide, its CEO and its Asia ops subsidiary were labelled "absconders" by a Bhopal court for escaping from India and not facing trial.

Carbide was still US’s third-largest chemical manufacturer and 37th among the top 50 US companies in 1984. The Bhopal disaster was bad for business. It was a public relations nightmare and would run up several millions in legal costs. Carbide had to find a way to continue trade.

Now meet the Indian businessman who helped Carbide set up a discrete route of trading while evading Indian courts.

Mr Ajay Shankarlal Mittal is an heir to the realty business family Mittal Group. He currently owns Arshiya Ltd, a logistics firm.

In Oct 1987, 3 years after the disaster, Visa Petrochemicals, a chemical trading firm, was incorporated by former Carbide employees in Mumbai. It was created after the Govt advised Carbide to "exit totally out of India". Ajay Mittal would later acquire a 90% stake in the firm.

In Nov 1987, Carbide signed its first agreement with Visa 15 days before the CBI filed its chargesheet in the Bhopal case.

Carbide would route its products via Visa to Indian customers. This ensured a one arm distance b/w Carbide and India as protests raged on against Carbide.

Things got worse for Carbide in 1992.

Bhopal's Chief Judicial Magistrate ordered all Carbide properties in India to be seized. This included the firm's infrastructure and products meant for sale. The Magistrate also declared Carbide an absconder for evading trial.

For Carbide, continuing trade now would be tougher and more complicated than before. Carbide and its affiliates had to come up with a new plan.

Mittal’s businesses proved crucial in fulfilling Carbide’s “legal requirement to distance from India”, reveal company documents.

At this point, can I request you to consider donating to The Reporters' Collective? Such investigative work takes humungous resources and time. We are able to do such reportage because you support rigorous journalism. reporters-collective.in/support-us

Back to the investigation:

Mittal owned a firm in Houston, called Mega Global Services, which was set up in March 1993. A month later Carbide terminated its contract with Visa Petrochemicals. It signed a new agreement with Mega Global the same day.

Mega Global Services’ role was to first buy Carbide products and resell them to “customers located in India”. Carbide products would be relabeled as that of Mega Global Services in this process.

Mittal now owned both the firms crucial to Carbide backdoor channel.

Visa Petrochemical would scout for customers. It would pass on formal price queries from potential customers to both Mega Global Services and Union Carbide Asia Pacific. They, in turn, sent them to the parent Union Carbide, which would send the prices to Carbide Asia Pacific.

The Asia-Pacific unit would further send that information to Visa Petrochemical which sent it to the customer. If the buyer agreed, it would place the order with Mega Global Services. Carbide would sell the product to Mega Global Services.

Carbide would arrange a third-party transporter, known as a “freight forwarder”, to ship the goods to the customer.

Visa Petrochemical would sign off on an indent – a document listing out the products imported – for the customer.

While the product originated from Carbide warehouses, the seller on documents given at the Indian port was Mega Global Services, for which it earned a commission.

Almost all of Mega Global Services’ business revolved around buying and then shipping Carbide products as their own.

In 1998, Mega Global Services was replaced by a Singapore firm with a similar name – MegaVisa Solutions Pte Ltd. It played the same role Mega Global did. This too was owned by Mittal Group.

Internally, Carbide and later Dow employees were frank about the nature of these firms.

A Dow India manager for example said, “MegaVisa Singapore entity was set up to take care of the post-Bhopal situation, and is essentially a shell company.”

Visa Petrochemical meanwhile was called Carbide's "extended arm". Mega Global earned the nickname "front party".

This Mittal-owned network of “extended arms” and “shells” would ensure Carbide products were sold in the India from 1993 to 2002. And among its customers were firms owned by the Indian government – the very party that was suing it for causing death and illness to its citizens.

Among Carbide customers were wholly govt-owned firms such as GAIL, Hindustan Photo Films Manufacturing Co Ltd and Hindustan Cables. Lubrizol India, then an equal joint venture between govt-owned Indian Oil Corp and American chemical company Lubrizol, was also a customer.

Companies promoted by the governments of Gujarat (Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd), Tamil Nadu (Indian Additives Ltd) and Madhya Pradesh (Vindhya Telelinks Ltd) also bought Carbide’s products through the channel.

The list of customers also includes more than 150 private firms, including Reliance Industries, Sterlite Industries, Finolex Cables, Crompton Greaves, Berger Paints and Castrol India.

Many of Carbide’s buyers clearly knew who they were shaking hands with. Carbide informed ONGC and IOC that its US-based front company would participate in tenders floated by the two govt-owned companies.

In India, Visa Petrochemical even convinced Dept Of Telecommunications (DoT) to float a tender for cable products. It was a seller of the same cable product -- manufactured by Carbide.

“Even in this time of extreme turmoil & hostile environment for our team we have continued to work with DoT,” Mittal said in an email to a Carbide official on May 5, 2000. He also notes that MegaVisa’s work with DoT will help “drive out smaller players”.

In February 2001, Dow bought Carbide.

Activists demanded that the company come clean on why its fully owned subsidiary never faced trial and pay additional compensation to victims.

Dow refused to take ownership of UCC’s liabilities.

However, Dow also continued trading UCC’s products for a year using its intermediary companies. But it was keen to mask its link to UCC.

In early 2002, after bad customer and internal feedback on the Mittal-owned firms, Dow decided to shrink the role played by the Mittal-owned firms.

This did not go down well with the Mittal-owned firms. They filed a against Dow and Carbide on 'antitrust' grounds.

The #CarbidePapers are being shared here. You can access the documents and read out our story by @AJEnglish here:
reporters-collective.in/projects/carbi…

The story is now out in Hindi as well. You can read it here, published by @The_Mooknayak:
themooknayak.in/despite-the-ba…

And again, please consider donating. Such investigative journalism holds corporations and governments of all colours accountable to citizens. To do so we the collective needs your support. reporters-collective.in/support-us

The pic in the first tweet, which has come to symbolise the disaster, was clicked by Raghu Rai. It’s his work that has helped many of us understand the gravity of the tragedy.