Coca-Cola is stirring up controversy yet again in Vietnam, with Da Nang threatening to close down its factory following complaints that the multinational corporation has been dumping untreated waste into the surrounding environment.
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Huynh Duc Tho, chairman of Da Nang’ People’s Committee, said that if the claims are corroborated, the city may withdraw the company’s license, effectively closing the factory, according to Tuoi Tre.
In 2013, Coca-Cola’s Vietnam operations came under fire for shady accounting practices wherein the company reported losses to avoid taxes.
“The debt status of Coca-Cola Vietnam is in fact not a debt, as the money is provided by its parent company, which is in fact part of the profits the Vietnam firm annually sends back to the parent under the disguise of raw material payment,” Ly Duy Minh, head of Saigon’s tax inspection agency said at the time.
Despite its bubbly image, Coca-Cola is no stranger to controversy. It has implicated in degrading local water supplies in India, human rights abuses and murders of union workers in its Colombian bottling plants and bribing American physicians to praise the drink’s health benefits.
[Photo via Life Out Of Office]
