Chamber Watch released a new report on Chamber of Commerce litigation.
It looks at roughly 3 years’ worth (and over 500 cases) of Chamber litigation. Some of its major findings include:
· For an organization that decries litigiousness and tries to limit consumers’ access to the courts, the Chamber is a prolific litigator, filing a suit or amicus brief every other day of the work week, on average.
The Chamber’s legal filings supported at least one Fortune 500 company almost 60 percent of the time, but supported a small business only 7 percent of the time.
The Chamber filed a brief in support of foreign multinationals (57 times) almost twice as often as it did on behalf of domestic small businesses (29 times).
The No. 1 legal issue addressed by the Chamber was restricting consumer and small business access to the courts. The second and third were employment and labor relations issues and environmental issues, respectively.
The government agency that the Chamber most frequently opposed was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 15 cases against the EPA, the Chamber was the plaintiff. It filed amicus briefs in cases against the EPA 11 times.
Ford was the company most frequently directly assisted by the Chamber. State Farm and Dow tied for second. ExxonMobil was third. Koch Industries and Bank of America tied for fourth.
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