Killer Coke
A Never-ending Story of Exploitation, Greed, Lies, Cover-ups and Complicity in Kidnapping, Torture, Murder and other Gross Human Rights Abuses

Coca-Cola Board of Directors & Warren Buffett


Campaign Reports | Newletter Archive

The Coca-Cola Company | Top Executives | Board Members | Annual Meeting Webcasts | Institutional Shareholders | Phony Awards & Investigations | Responsible Shopper | CCE, Coca-Cola FEMSA & Dr. Pepper | Coca-Cola Brands | Coca-Cola FEMSA Brands | Heineken Brands


The following information is to help individuals and groups communicate their feelings directly to the top policymakers of The Coca-Cola Co. Groups may want to organize leafletting, demonstrations and letter writing campaigns at the principal offices of these directors:

(For current information on each director see "Meet The Board" in Coca-Cola's 2019 Proxy Statement.)


James Quincy

James Quincy
President and Chief Executive Officer
The Coca-Cola Company
One Coca-Cola Plaza
Atlanta, GA 30313, or
PO Box 1734
Atlanta, GA 30301
(404) 676-2121 (Switchboard)

Involved in ongoing Angel Alvarado/SIAAGSA scandal in Mexico And the theft of Mexican entrepreneur Jose Del Valle's GO GABA brand trade secrets.
Visit: Coke's Crimes in Mexico

Compensation:

2020 — $18,383,474
2019 — $18,701,149
2018 — $16,701,328




NEWS RELEASE

Contact Pat Clark or Ray Rogers
Corporate Campaign, Inc.
718-852-2808

Incoming Coca-Cola CEO Charged With Condoning Scheme to Defraud Mexican Government and Workers Out of Billions of Dollars

NEW YORK, New York, April 24, 2017 — James Quincey, The Coca-Cola Company's incoming CEO, presided over an alleged scheme to defraud Mexican workers and the Mexican government out of billions of dollars while he was President of Coca-Cola's Mexico division between 2005 and 2008, charged Ray Rogers, Director of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke.

Coca-Cola's alleged scam, which started in 1987, came to light in 2007 when a marketing executive refused to comply with Quincey's directives to employ illegal monopolistic practices to strong-arm Mom-and-Pop stores throughout Mexico to stop selling competing beverages.

After being forced to resign in the presence of an armed guard, the whistleblower discovered a decades-long scheme to circumvent Mexican labor laws requiring 10% profit sharing to employees. That scheme not only defrauded the workers out of hundreds of millions of dollars, but also cheated the Mexican government out of tens of millions of dollars in annual tax revenue.

According to Rogers, "Quincey's promotion to CEO means that Coca-Cola intends to continue its illegal and immoral treatment of workers throughout the world." Quincey joined Coca-Cola's Latin America Group in 1996 and became president of the South Latin Division in 2003. During his tenure in Latin America, Coca-Cola has faced numerous charges of complicity in human rights abuses in Colombia and Guatemala, including the kidnapping, torture and murder of union leaders documented on www.KillerCoke.org and in The Coca-Cola Case, a documentary produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

Colombia Reports 8/30/16 stated: "Coca-Cola is one of more than 50 companies that will be charged with financing the now-defunct Colombian paramilitary AUC group ... which killed many dozens of labor rights defenders during its existence between 1997 and 2006, to a transitional justice tribunal."

Rogers asserts, "Holding Coca-Cola responsible for its misconduct in Mexico poses special obstacles because of the company's close ties to the Mexican government." Before serving as Mexico's president between 2000 and 2006, Vicente Fox was Coca-Cola's top executive in Mexico. In October 2014, a Mexican lawsuit charging Coca-Cola, Quincey and other senior executives with liability for the fraudulent labor and tax scam was dismissed.

"With Quincey's elevation to the Coca-Cola's top worldwide job, the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke will redouble its efforts to bring Quincey and the company to justice," says Rogers, who stated that "the Campaign has opened an investigation into the circumstances of how and why the Mexican lawsuit was dismissed."

Rogers said that the Campaign is expanding to focus on Mexico, Coca-Cola's largest per capita market, and is also considering commencing a civil action in the United States and/or a petition for relief with one of the international courts of human rights.

Per Rogers, Coca-Cola's exposure for the Mexican labor and tax fraud runs to the billions of dollars, pointing to a May 2011 report from major international law firm CORPUSIURE. That report concluded that "[i]f the accusations of fraud held against Coca-Cola [are] found to be true, the company would lose a figure ranging in the billions."

Campaign to Stop Killer Coke Director Ray Rogers questioning Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent about Incoming CEO James Quincey's involvement in a scheme which has defrauded Mexican workers and the Mexican government out of billions of dollars.

Visit Facebook Page


Muhtar Kent

Muhtar Kent
Former Chairman & CEO, Retired, April 2019

  • Bilderberg Group, Attendee
  • Council on Foreign Relations, Board Member
  • US-China Business Council, Board member
  • 3M Company, Board member

Muhtar Kent followed in the footsteps of previous Board Chairman and CEO E. Neville Isdell by repeatedly lying to shareholders present at the April 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 annual meetings and many others watching the meetings on webcasts.

At these annual meetings, Kent typically responds to questions raised by Campaign Director Ray Rogers by first stating that Rogers's accusations are "unfounded;" that his accusations have "no merit" and that there is no truth to issues raised regarding Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador and racial discrimination in the U.S.

Killer Coke

However, each year Kent has been taken to task by several reporters in Mexico because there are outstanding labor and criminal lawsuits by a former 16-year employee and top marketing executive of The Coca-Cola Co. The plaintiff, Angel Alvarado Agüero, alleges that the company pressured him to act illegally to destroy all competition at the 700,000 mom and pop stores in Mexico. When he refused, he was forcibly and unjustifiably dismissed and denied substantial compensation owed to him. In the past, Coke had been fined millions of dollars for engaging in similar monopolistic activity in Mexico.

But even worse, this case highlights how The Coca-Cola Company and its wholly owned subsidiary, The Coca-Cola Export Corp., conspired to illegally cheat Mexican workers out of hundreds of millions of dollars in pay and profit sharing and the Mexican government out of millions in tax revenues.

In addition, Kent stated that all court cases have been dismissed, yet there is an outstanding case that was filed in the State Supreme Court of New York on February 25, 2010, accusing Coke and its operations in Guatemala of murder, rape and attempted murder directed at union leaders and family members.

Because of Kent's lies with respect to Mexico, Ray Rogers filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) accusing Muhtar Kent of committing actionable fraud on the market by instigating and continuing a cover-up of factual information concerning a series of lawsuits and investigations by Mexican regulators against the company. These actions, festering in Mexico for the past several years, could have a material effect, well into the billions of dollars, and negatively impact the company's share price and brand value.

Unfortunately, labor, human rights and environmental abuses throughout The Coca-Cola System continue to pile up worldwide.

SEC Complaint against Coca-Cola and two Updates

Muhtar Kent and Insider Stock Trading:

It should be noted that Kent was implicated in an insider trading scandal. According to TheStreet.com (1/20/06):

"It seems that in the fall of 1996, as a managing director of Coca-Cola Amatil-Europe, Kent sold short 100,000 shares of the bottler — just before a profit warning clipped the stock. Kent said back then that he believed the sale was legal and that he hadn't been influenced by any information about Amatil's results.

"Australian regulators didn't see it that way. So the next year, Kent settled an insider trading complaint with the Australian Securities Commission. Without admitting wrongdoing, Kent agreed to repay about $400,000 in profit from the transaction, plus $50,000 to help cover the cost of the investigation.

"Kent resigned from Amatil in September 1997. "He thought it was in his and the company's best interests," his spokesman told Sydney's Daily Telegraph at the time...

"'This was neither an insider issue nor were any company rules violated,' a Coke spokesman told The Wall Street Journal. 'It basically was a situation where Muhtar was provided with incorrect financial advice. When he discovered it was incorrect he moved immediately to remedy the situation.'

"You aren't alone if you find that explanation a little flat."


2020 Director Compensation for attending a small number of Coca-Cola Board Meetings.

Herbert Allen $310,003
Marc Bolland $290,003
Ana Botin $290,003
Christopher Davis $290,944
Barry Diller $310,738
Helene Gayle $315,003
Alexis Herman $334,187
Robert Kotick $340,003
Maria Elena Lagomasino $347,611
Caroline Tsay $291,892
David Weinberg $314,253

 

Meet The Coca-Cola Board of Directors


Herbert A. Allen

Herbert A. Allen
President, CEO, Member of Board of Directors
Allen & Co. Inc
711 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10022
(212) 832-8000

Coca-Cola Director since 1982



Herbert A. Allen

Mark Bolland
CEO/Director
Marks and Spencer Group plc
Waterside House
35 North Wharf Road
London
W2 1NW
Telephone: 020 7935 4422

  • Coca-Cola director since 2015

Herbert A. Allen

Ana Botin
Executive Chair
Banco Santander SA
2 Triton Square
5th Floor
Regent's Place
London,  NW1 3AN
United Kingdom
44 20 7756

  • Coca-Cola director since 2013

Christopher Davis

Christopher Davis
Chairman
Davis Advisors

  • Coca-Cola director since 2018

Barry Diller

Barry Diller
Chairman
IAC/InterActive Corp
152 West 57th Street
New York, New York, 10019
(212) 581-6433
(212) 314-7300

  • Coca-Cola Director since 2002
  • Interactive owns: Expedia, Inc., Interval International, TV Travel Shop; Hotels.com; HSN; Live Nation, Inc, Match.com, uDate.com; Entertainment Publications; Citysearch; Precision Response Corporation; and LendingTree
  • New York University, Trustee
  • UCLA, Board for the Medical Sciences, Director
  • University of Southern California, School of Cinema-Television, Board of Councilors
  • The Washington Post Company, Director

AMNY reported that Barry Diller stepped down as CEO, but will remain as Chairman, of IAC/Interactive Corp. in the wake "of IAC employees' accusations reported by Gawker that Diller has misused company money":

CNET News reported on December 2, 2010 that a disgruntled tipster told Gawker.com in November that the carpeting in Diller's office in the company's striking, Frank Gehry-designed Manhattan headquarters was worth a full $1 million; that Diller spent thousands of dollars of IAC money on personal travel every day; and that his company car was upgraded from a Mercedes to a Maserati this year."

On Barry Diller & New York University:

In 2005, New York University made headlines when the University Senate pledged its commitment to human rights by kicking Coca-Cola off campus. Four years later, the Senate turned its back on these principles, failed to live up to its own resolution and invited Killer Coke back to NYU, leaving many students angry. As Jeff Olshansky, the co-chair of NYU Law Students for Economic Justice said, "NYU made a promise to these Colombian workers and they broke that promise. NYU decided to put their financial relationship with Coke above human rights."

Why?

Could it be that a member of the NYU Board of Trustees also happens to be a Director of The Coca-Cola Company?

Billionaire Barry Diller "earns" more in one hour than most make in a year. And when NYU Trustee Diller purchased $20 million dollars of Coca-Cola stock in March 2009, he did so just weeks after NYU surprisingly reversed their ban on Killer Coke.

Coincidence?

Seven months later, Barry Diller bought an additional 510,000 shares of Coca-Cola stock for $27.6 million dollars, continuing his support for one of the world's most corrupt companies.

As of June 13, 2013, Diller owns 4,000,000 shares of Coke valued at $161,640,000.

It should be noted that The Coca-Cola Company has paid substantial sums to Diller's InterActiveCorp. It's laughable that Coca-Cola calls Diller an "independent director."

Is it any wonder that Barry Diller does not speak out against Coke's injustices and that NYU administrators are helping cover up Coke's crimes?

According to the Wall Street Journal, "Media mogul Barry Diller has agreed to pay $480,000 in fines for violating merger reporting rules when he bought more shares of Coca-Cola Co. between 2010 and 2012..."


Evan Greenberg

Helene D. Gayle
President & CEO
CARE USA

  • Coca-Cola Director since 2013
  • Colgate-Palmolive Co., Director

Alexis Herman

Alexis Herman
Chair and CEO
New Ventures LLC

  • Coca-Cola Director since 2007
  • Cummings Inc, Director
  • Entergy Corp, Director
  • MGM Mirage, Director
  • Sodexo , Inc, Chair of Business Advisory Board
  • Toyota Motor Corp. Chair of North American Diversity Advisory Board

Robert Kotick

Robert Kotic

  • Appointed to Coca-Cola's Board February 16, 2012

Kotick is President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Activision Blizzard, Inc., a global interactive entertainment software company leader and the world's largest independent video game publisher.


Maria E. Lagomasino

Maria E. Lagomasino
Chief Executive Officer & Managing Partner
WE Family Offices
701 Brickell Avenue, Suite 2100
Miami, FL 33131
Tel:  (305) 825-2225 • info@wefamilyoffices.com

  • Coca-Cola Director since 2008
  • Avon Products Inc., Director

Caroline Tsay

Caroline Tsay
CEO, Compute Software Inc.
Mountain View, California

  • Coca-Cola director since 2018

Herbert A. Allen

David B. Weinberg
Chair/CEO
Judd Enterprises, Inc.
21 South Clark Street
Suite 3140
Chicago, IL 60603-2016
(312) 236-3836

  • Coca-Cola director since 2015
  • Digital Bandwidth LLC, President
  • Northwestern University, Vice Chair-Board of Trustees

Warren E. Buffett

Warren E. Buffett (Former Board Member of Note: Coca-Cola's Largest Investor)
Chairman and CEO
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
1440 Kiewit Plaza
Omaha, NE 68131
(402) 346-1400

Buffett currently serves on the following boards:

  • Grinnell College, Trustee
  • Burlington Northern Santa Fe, LLC, Manager
  • Lubrizol Corporation, Director
  • MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company, Director
  • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Trustee
  • Borsheim Jewelry Company, Inc., Chairman
  • Citigroup Global Markets Holdings, Inc., Director

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is the largest institutional holder of stock in The Coca-Cola Company, with 400 million shares worth $16.164 billion representing 9 percent of the common shares outstanding as of June 13, 2013. Over the years, this has been Buffett's/Berkshire Hathaway's single largest investment. Buffett was a member of The Coca-Cola Company's board of directors from 1989 to 2006.

"Don Keough, former director and President of The Coca-Cola Co., sits on the board of Berkshire Hathaway"

Buffett is called the "Oracle of Omaha" or the "Sage of Omaha" and has a reputation as a liberal, having been a key advisor to President Barack Obama. Is this reputation earned or is it all public relations? Let's take a look at another side of Warren Buffett:

Mr. Buffet sat on the board of Coca-Cola for 17 years. In all that time, as one of Coke's top policymakers, he never challenged or questioned the company's labor, human rights and environmental abuses or the aggressive marketing of nutritionally worthless and damaging soft drinks to children. All members of the board opposed resolution after resolution trying to place Coca-Cola on the right side of human rights.

"Much of Buffett's wealth has been made on his huge, long-term investments in Coke. His wealth has been built on undermining the health of millions of children, the exploitation of workers and the destruction of the environment. One share of Berkshire Hathaway stock is priced at $170,952 as of June 19, 2013."

Warren Buffett, From Killer Coke to Climate Killer:

But it gets worse. In "The Climate Killers: Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming," (Rolling Stone, 1/21/10), Warren Buffett was described as, "The Profiteer." Despite Buffett's work with Obama, the article stated "...America's best-known investor has been blasting the president's push to curb global warming - using the same lying points promoted by far-right Republicans. The climate bill passed by the House, Buffett insists, is a 'huge tax - and there's no sense calling it anything else...'

"But Buffett, whose investments have the power to move entire markets, is doing far more than bad-mouthing climate legislation — he's literally banking on its failure... His conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, has added 1.28 million shares of America's biggest climate polluter, ExxonMobil, to its balance sheet."

And the article goes on: "...in November, Berkshire placed a huge wager on the future of coal pollution, purchasing the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad for $26 billion - the largest acquisition of Buffett's storied career. BNSF is the nation's top hauler of coal, shipping some 300 million tons a year."

Among the 17 "polluters and deniers" with Buffett are conservative publisher Rupert Murdoch, Blue Dog Sen. Mary Landrieu, Conservative writer George Will, Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, former 2008 Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and Tea Partiers Charles and David Koch.

On June 2, Buffett was subpoenaed by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which according to Reuters (June 3, 2010), grilled him on whether, as Moody's largest shareholder/owner, he took any responsibility for that company's disastrous role in the worldwide financial crisis. Buffett did not want to take any responsibility or in any way suggest that Moody's or Goldman Sachs, which he is also heavily invested in, has any responsibility.

"Obama Patron Warren Buffett Buys Over $500 Million of Suncor Tar Sands Stock" by Steve Horn, Daily Kos
Read Article

"Warren Buffett - the fourth richest man on the planet ...this latest development follows a trend of Buffett enriching himself through dirty investments and deal-making...

"Though he receives far less negative press than the Koch Brothers, Buffett's no deep green ecologist. Not in the slightest."


Cathleen Black

Cathleen Black
Resigned, Chair and former President
Hearst Corp., Magazine Division
1345 Avenue of the Americas, 42nd floor
New York, NY 10005
(212) 649-2641

Coca-Cola Director since 1993; Resigned effective December 31, 2010

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in one of his worst political decisions, appointed Cathleen Black as Chancellor of New York City's public schools. Black resigned from the board of Coca-Cola in November 2010 in an effort to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest since New York City does business with Coca-Cola through a third party vendor. Black is both unfit and unqualified for this position. She is unqualified because she has NO public school nor educational experience and needed a backdoor political appointment.

But even worse, she is unfit for the position because of the corrupt policies that she supported as a top policymaker of Coke since 1993. Black raked in millions at Coca-Cola and holds millions of dollars of Coca-Cola stock, much of which was made off the backs of children working in sugar cane fields and from the mass-marketing of nutritionally-worthless and damaging products to children that continues throughout the world.

Read Juan Gonzalez's article on Cathleen Black and Coca-Cola in the NY Daily News:

Read New York Times article By MICHAEL BARBARO and ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

Cathleen Black oversees the financial performance and development of some of the industry's best-known titles: Cosmopolitan; Esquire; Good Housekeeping; Harper's BAZAAR; Marie Claire; O, The Oprah Magazine; Popular Mechanics; Redbook; and Town & Country — 17 magazines in all. She also oversees 115 international editions of those magazines in more than 100 countries.

  • Hearst Corporation, Director
  • IBM, Director Resigned
  • The University of Notre Dame, Trustee
  • Council on Foreign Relations, Member

Sam Nunn

Sam Nunn
Retired from board April 2019
Retired Partner, but with an office at King & Spalding
King & Spalding LLP
1180 Peachtree Street NE
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
(404) 572-4949
(404) 572-4600

  • Coca-Cola Director since 1997
  • Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
  • General Electric Company, Director
  • Hess Corporation, Director
  • Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, Distinguished Professor
  • Center for Strategic and International Studies, Chairman of the Board
    Read "Sam Nunn: Legacy of Shame"

King & Spalding's web site describes their "Traditional Labor Practice":

"...We counsel non-union clients on how to remain union free, and we represent clients in union organizing campaigns and unfair labor practice cases. We have also advised clients with respect to decertifying incumbent labor unions, and have had a number of successful decertifications. We often represent clients in collective bargaining, advise clients on contract interpretation issues, and represent clients in arbitration proceedings pursuant to their collective bargaining agreements. We also actively work with clients facing work stoppages, including training management employees, obtaining injunctive relief where appropriate, and advising clients on replacement of striking workers..."

Under "Preventive Advice and Training" King & Spalding states: "We also conduct training for all levels of employees from executives to staff. These training sessions include: The Manager's and Supervisor's role in Maintaining Union Free Status..."

Some of the clients that King & Spalding have represented include Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., The Coca-Cola Co., Chevron, Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil Corp, General Electric Capital Corp., General Electric Co., General Motors Corp., GlaxoSmithKline, Lockheed Martin Corp, SunTrust Banks, Inc. and Turner Broadcasting System.

On Chevron: In 1997, after 24 years in the U.S. Senate representing Georgia, Nunn was elected to the board of Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001. For all the years that Nunn has been involved at Texaco and now Chevron, these companies have been involved in many egregious environmental and human rights abuses.

Over three decades of oil drilling in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Chevron dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the rainforest, leaving local people suffering a wave of cancers, miscarriages and birth defects.

Mr. Nunn as chairman of the Board's Public Policy Committee is the person most suited to deal with this issue. He declined an invitation to meet with several large shareholders who had toured the Ecuador disaster area.

The Public Policy Committee is concerned with and Identifies, monitors and evaluates domestic and international social, political and environmental trends and issues that affect Chevron's activities and performance; The Committee recommends to the Board policies, programs and strategies concerning such issues.

It is clear that Mr. Nunn is part of the status quo and plays the same role at Chevron that he plays at Coca-Cola where profits take precedence over ethics, morality and justice. For all those years he has abused his power as a top policymaker for Texaco and Chevron, he has been paid handsomely. In 2009, his compensation from Chevron for attending a small number of board meetings was $307,205.

The Campaign for Justice in Ecuador

Special Report on Sam Nunn