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Payment Providers for Conservative Businesses
Key Takeaways
- Per the BBC, Citibank ceased doing business with Huntington Life Sciences after the company was accused of cruelty against animals in its labs.
- Pressure from animal rights groups such as Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) was the main reason for Citibank's decision to stop working with Huntington Life Sciences.
- Protests were organized by SHAC against companies linked to Huntingdon Life Sciences.
Introduction
Citibank is an example of a financial institution that decided to stop doing business with Huntington Life Sciences, a company it determined as a liability because of animal welfare issues. Details are below.
Citibank
- Citibank is an American multinational investment bank headquartered in New York City.
- It provides financial services and products to consumers, companies, institutions, and governments.
Their Position
- In 2001, the BBC reported that Citibank had ceased doing business with Huntington Life Sciences after the company was accused of cruelty against animals in its labs. At the time, Huntingdon operated in the UK and US.
- In 2015, Huntingdon Life Sciences merged with two other companies to form Envigo. The company provides scientific research services.
What Made Them Take this Position
- Citibank was forced to stop any dealings with Huntington Life Sciences after immense pressure from animal rights groups such as Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) who targeted not only Huntington Life Sciences, but its financial backers, customers, and partners.
- SHAC claimed that Citibank controlled around 10 million Huntingdon shares.
- Protests were organized by SHAC against companies linked to Huntingdon Life Sciences and Citibank's decision to stop providing financial services to Huntingdon nearly caused the company to close. The lead protesters were later jailed.
Research Strategy
After an extensive search, we did not find any example of a merchant or payment processor that has decided to stop doing business with a company that is involved in rodeo or livestock auctions or any type of business that they may determine is a liability because of animal welfare issues in the US or in any other location. However, we found an example of a bank in the US (Citibank) that in 2001 ceased doing business with Huntington Life Sciences after the company was accused of cruelty against animals in its labs.
To find an example of the requested merchant or payment processor, we first looked for pre-compiled case studies. This strategy was not successful. The second strategy was to search through different websites for merchants like PayPal, Stripe, and Square to find any requested examples of companies that they stopped processing payments for due to rodeo or livestock auctions or other businesses that were thought to be a liability due to animal welfare issues. This strategy provided several examples of companies or organizations, such as Stripe and PayPal halting payments for Trump's campaign and supporters, but none was in the rodeo or livestock auctions industry or sector requested.
The BBC source is dated 2001 and outside Wonder's two year source as that is when Citibank stopped working with Huntingdon Life Sciences. We were forced to use the source as we did not find any recent sources with the same information.