Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

176 Pitfalls and Pipelines: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries
ferent negative outcomes, and it is useful to discover who any
insurers are. Even more than investors, an insurance company
will be concerned about risks, as it has, quite literally, more to
lose than the investors if it has to pay for any insurance claim.
2.3.2 Direct Approaches to the Company and
Investors
One of the first questions asked may be why bother with
approaching the headquarters of a multinational company?
It could be that the community is already in touch with the
local office, and dealing with a distant head office seems too
daunting or a waste of time. It will be that remote head office,
however, which makes the crucial decisions on a project. This
is true even if sometimes a company will do its best to make
it look like that is not the case, for instance when it wants to
avoid legal action in its home country.
The chair or CEO of a company may well claim ignorance
of the points that are raised by a community. That could be a
ruse, but in a large multinational it is quite possible that all of
the facts have not been presented to the head of the company.
It is in the interest of the staff person at project or country level
to ensure a project goes through, and so it is quite possible
that they have not relayed all of your issues to head office (as
doing so could negatively affect the chances of the project proceeding).
This is where a community can emphasise the risks
involved in the project directly to the company management.
If it is in the personal interest of some staff within a company
not to fully disclose the risks involved in an extractive
project, it is even more likely that a company will be “minimal
with the truth” to its investors and creditors. This is true
despite any regulations, which insist on full disclosure. 7 That
is why it is so important to be communicating with the shareholders
and creditors in a company. The extractive industries
are generally known as a risky investment. 8 The “owners and
loaners” have concrete risks of financial loss if a project goes