CAPRiM Ltd (Corporate Asset Protection and Risk Management), was an

intelligence service An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of informatio ...

used by

corporations A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

Background

CAPRiM was established in May 1993 as a successor to the Economic League, which had held the construction industry's blacklist until it was wound up in 1993 after a parliamentary inquiry and bad press. It provided continued employment for two former League directors, Jack Winder and Stan Hardy. The construction company Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd invested £10,000 in founding CAPRiM on the understanding that it would not interfere with The Consulting Association.

Targets

In evidence given to the Scottish Parliamentary Affairs Committee, as part of its inquiry into blacklisting on 5 February 2013, the former CAPRiM director Jack Winder said that it held information and knowledge on campaigning groups and "far-left" political parties seen as a threat to businesses such as the following: *

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

Reclaim the Streets Reclaim the Streets also known as RTS, are a collective with a shared ideal of community ownership of public spaces. Participants characterise the collective as a resistance movement opposed to the dominance of corporate forces in globalisa ...

* Ethical consumerism *

Campaign Against the Arms Trade Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) is a UK-based campaigning organisation working towards the abolition of the international arms trade. It was founded in 1974 by a coalition of peace groups. It has been involved in several high-profile campaig ...

Animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...

* Anti- GM activists CAPRiM warned firms of those that it believed could "weaken a company's ability to manage its affairs profitably". Its monitor said: "Companies need to be warned what these organisations are saying and planning. Caprim provides this information. And assesses the strength of the threat. And advises on appropriate action".

Directors

Jack Winder claimed that the joint managing directors were himself and Stan Hardy, and its non-executive directors were Sir Henry Saxon Tate CBE (of

Tate & Lyle Tate & Lyle PLC is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s it began to diversify, eventually divesting its sugar business i ...

) and Bernard Norman Sefton-Forbes. Hardy had previously been the director-general of the Economic League and was a director of CAPRiM until at least 1999.

References

{{Reflist Construction and civil engineering companies of the United Kingdom Consulting firms established in 1993 Informal legal terminology Labour relations in the United Kingdom Defunct companies of Scotland 1993 establishments in Scotland 2009 disestablishments in Scotland British companies established in 1993 Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1993 Construction and civil engineering companies disestablished in 2009