Anarkon envisions a world without:

1. Global Trade Regulations

As domestic competition increases and emerging economies mature, companies are looking to global markets as an opportunity to grow revenues. However, they face significant challenges which include:

1. Fines & Penalties: US export criminal fines increased 36 times in the last year. Within the past year, well-known businesses have faced fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars for unknowingly violating export-control regulations that have become a mainstay of global business.
2. Operational Impact: The most apparent operational impact to a business caused by the need to comply with global trade regulations is longer cycle times. At each stage of fulfilling an international order, the tasks required to ensure compliance with regulations take time.
3. Financial Impact: Longer cycle times mean higher international inventories, which mean higher carrying costs. Unfortunately, for most companies doing business globally, longer cycle times constitute only half of the inventory problem internationally. The other half of the problem is the need for higher levels of safety stock associated with international shipments because of the increased uncertainty of when goods will arrive at the destination country, and when they will clear customs.
4. Shipment Delays: If a company does not submit proper documents or is not compliant with security or export / import regulations, shipments can be held up in customs for extended periods of time, resulting in the delayed delivery of goods, a fractured supply chain, lost income, and unhappy customers.
5. Bad Publicity: Should a company be fined a considerable amount for non-compliance with trade laws, the resulting bad publicity could be crippling to a corporation’s reputation, resulting in missed income opportunities.

2. Corporate Accountability

The concept of corporate accountability has grown as increasing numbers of campaigns by activist groups challenge irresponsible and dangerous actions by corporate giants. This practice spreads bad press and potentially damaging information about the operations and dealings of large corporations, undermining brand loyalty.

3. Restrictions on Chemical Use

Europe recently rolled out new restrictions on makers of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems, changes that are forcing U.S. industries to find new ways to produce a wide range of everyday products. The new laws require companies to demonstrate that a chemical is safe before it enters commerce. Manufacturers say that complying with the European laws will add billions to their costs, possibly driving up prices of products.

4. Anti-Trust Laws Limiting Growth

Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, has three main elements:

1. Prohibiting agreements or practices that restrict free trading and competition between business entities. This includes in particular the repression of cartels.
2. Banning abusive behavior by a company dominating a market, or anti-competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position. Practices controlled in this way may include predatory pricing, tying, price gouging, refusal to deal, and others.
   
3. Supervising the mergers and acquisitions of large corporations, including some joint ventures. Transactions that are considered to threaten the competitive process can be prohibited altogether, or approved subject to “remedies” such as an obligation to divest part of the merged business or to offer licences or access to facilities to enable other businesses to continue competing. Such laws unduly penalize successful companies.

5. Prohibitive Environmental Laws

In the United States and Canada’s, recent policy efforts aimed at corporate environmental practices have focused on increased transparency. Recent legislative strides include laws that require firms to make pollution releases and transfers available to the public, which can have damaging effects on shareholder value.

The 2002 International Environmental Policy Summit in Johannesburg released the most progressive global policy recommendations focused on the corporate world’s ambivalent relationship to the environment. At the summit, international development organizations helped to establish checks that require companies to report the full extent of their impact on the environment, a process that is invasive, costly and in many cases garners bad press.

6. Franchise Laws Limiting Growth

There are federal laws governing franchising, and there are state laws governing franchising. These laws are not uniform, and they vary from state to state. To further complicate matters, there are state and federal laws that govern “business opportunities” and “seller-assisted marketing plans” that can also apply. Furthermore, some districts limit the number of franchises allowed in a given area, undermining consumer demand and hurting local economies.

7. Unnecessary Corporate Taxes

Tax levied by various jurisdictions on the profits made by companies or associations, take billions out of the pockets of corporations each year.

8. Dated Advertising Laws

Advertising Laws define the ways in which products can be advertised, such as placement, timing, and content. For example, the advertising of tobacco products is restricted by the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, which requires specified warning labels on all cigarette packages distributed in the United States and on all tobacco advertisements within the United States. Similar laws have been put into place regarding advertising directed at children and young adults.

9. Class Action Settlements

In 2006 there was a 300 percent increase from 2005 in the total value of securities class action cases settled due, in large part, to an increase in the average settlement size, rather than an increase in the number of cases settled. A five-fold increase in the average settlement size was driven in part by the number of 2006 “mega-settlements”. Fourteen cases settled for amounts of $100 million or more and five of these cases were in excess of $1 billion. These settlements far exceeded the 2004 and 2005 records for mega-settlements. The average market capitalization decline associated with these settlements was in excess of $40 billion. In contrast, the median settlement increased from $6.7 million for previous post-Reform Act years (1996-2005) to $7.0 million in 2006. These large settlements can lead to astronomical loses for companies in fines and court fees as well as bad press that most often leads to a decrease in sales.

10. Restrictive Human Rights Laws

In recent years groups of lawyers and labor advocates have been trying to hold transnational companies responsible for their actions by suing them in the United States for abetting and benefiting from human rights abuses overseas.

In 1996, for instance, the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) filed suit against Unocal, an oil and gas firm, charging that it knowingly used slave labor to build a pipeline in Burma. In addition to the Unocal case, the ILRF is handling lawsuits against Coca-Cola for allegedly using paramilitary forces to suppress union activity in Colombia, Del Monte for allegedly employing thugs who tortured union leaders in Guatemala and DynCorp for allegedly spraying Ecuadorian farmers and villagers with toxic chemicals that were supposed to be used on coca plants.

Increasingly corporations are being penalized for breaking laws regarding use of cheap and underage work forces employed in less than safe environments in other countries. These laws prevent smooth operation at optimal costs and decrease shareholder value at growing rates.

11. Expensive Corporate Lobbying

Corporate lobbying is the practice of trying to gain influence in the government for a campaign or cause deemed important by a corporation. Companies spend millions on lobbying efforts each year, damaging their bottom line, while wasting valuable time and resources.