Extraterritoriality Options

[Xahn Borealis]

I just want to be clear on one thing, extraterritoriality means you can set your own laws on your own territory? Is this right?
Assuming this to be correct, does this mean a corp could conduct illegal or unethical experiments in some hidden lab somewhere, and as far as the Corporate Court is concerned, this is fine?

[Belvidere]

I believe there is a few boundaries the Corporate Court has set on certain experiments, but I'm also pretty sure those boundaries are very loosely defined.

[hobgoblin]

well, it works pretty much like it do an embassy.

so yes, the only real way anyone have to stop a nasty lab is either getting the other AAAs to deliver a collective stomping (think UN sanctioned war vs some nation) or make a very public stink about it.

but in any case, the PR department can just claim the activities was under a rogue manager and wash their hands of the whole deal.

subsidiaries, gotta love em.

[Xahn Borealis]

So if you can keep it under wraps from the public, it's basically legal? To the point of kidnapping corp citizens and disappearing them?

[Ancient History]

I went into it a little bit.

[hobgoblin]

So if you can keep it under wraps from the public, it's basically legal? To the point of kidnapping corp citizens and disappearing them?

about as legal as if any nation today would do so, especially if it was a nation with a non-democraric system running the place.

[Tachi]

Think of it like Iran's nuclear program.

[Abstruse]

I just want to be clear on one thing, extraterritoriality means you can set your own laws on your own territory? Is this right?
Assuming this to be correct, does this mean a corp could conduct illegal or unethical experiments in some hidden lab somewhere, and as far as the Corporate Court is concerned, this is fine?

The Corporate Court makes the laws that every member corporation has to follow. They pretty much boil down to "Don't do anything that's going to cost us all money." So not very many at all. The corporation can make their own laws for their lands. Now, a government may be able to deny extraterritoriality to a corporation (Tir Tairngire was the most famous for this), but it's rare especially in the UCAS, CAS, and Japan. However, while on their own property, then yes, they make their own laws answerable only to their parent corp if a subsidiary, their shareholders, and the Corporate Court.

[Sengir]

well, it works pretty much like it do an embassy.

Actually Shadowrun extraterritoriality is even better than that. Diplomatic missions are exempted from local law by the Vienna Conventions, but still on the host nation's soil. A megacorp compound on the other hand is the territory of another international entity, like an exclave of a traditional nation-state.


The UCAS can't stop the lease for the grounds of Ares HQ, they can't declare certain persons working there persona non grata, they can't do anything because the Ares HQ enjoys the same status as Seattle inside the Salish.

[Cheops]

Actually IIRC a lot of this advice is ambiguous. The key word in what you said is hidden.

Corporate Download 10

The [Business Recognition] Accords dictate that extraterritoriality applies in situations where a corp's site or facility is "continuous and contiguous, recognized and long-term

So a lab hidden underground in the Barrens is NOT extraterritorial UNLESS it is clearly marked and has been there for a while. A secret, unethical lab in the Seattle HQ is however totally fine. Of course PR wise the former is easier to spin than the latter. Note also that the Accords are universal and imposed by the CC in all countries except Amazonia, Aztlan, Manchuria, Yakut, and the 2 Tirs. This also means that the CC determines extraterritoriality and not the "host" nations.

In the case of kidnapping their own citizens you run into a sticky situation. Vehicles do not have corporate jurisdiction so if the citizen is kidnapped from one facility and driven across UCAS territory to another facility, while they are in UCAS territory the UCAS laws apply and kidnapping is a crime. I'm unclear on whether the Accords still allow the use of lethal force in defending their vehicles and shipments in non-corporate territory.

PS: I can't believe how poorly laid out and edited Corporate Download is. Yikes! Score 1 point for CGL.

[Mäx]

And a here's an explonation for that quote Cheops posted

>>>>>[Translation follows. "Continuos and contiguous" means
the area invlved must be recognizaple as a single area distinct
from its surroundings. Thtow up a fence around a track of land, or
lease an entire floor of an office building, and it's "continuos and
contiguous." As long as you can see some kind of intuitively
obvious distinction between corp property and surraunding terri-
tory, like "the tenth floor as opposed to ninth floor" or "all the
offices that can only be reached via the Gaeatronics lobby." the
area qualifies as extraterritorial. A hypothetical Yamatetsu rep who
shares a bullpen style open office with reps from other corps
couldn't claim her desk is extraterritorial, becouse you can't see a
clear distinction between her territory and everyone else's. It
sounds complicated, but the "intuitively obvious" rule makes a
good guideline.
"Recognized" means the are must have official and public
recognition as corp territory. for example, MCT can't open up a
secret office under the name of a local sole proprietorship and then
claim extraterritoriality for it. It's not recognized as MCT turf, so it
doesn't get those benefits.
"Long-term" means an official lease must exist, signed by a
duly authorised officer of the corporation, A couple of cort cases
tried to hash out exactly how long the lease has to run to qualify,
but the corp has to have the lease with the officer's signature. That
means a Renraku suit can't stand in the middle of his living room
just as Lone Star goons kick down his door and claim his apparment
is Renraku corp territory. That's how extraterritoriality works.]<<<<<
-Legal Beagle (17:38:oo/3-18-54)

So no a secret hidden lab wouldn't have extraterritoriality.

PS: damm typing that out made me apperisiate new copy-pastaple PDF-rulebooks all the more

[Aerospider]

I've always been a bit unsure about how subsidiaries work.

Does the parent corp's extraterritoriality extend to their subsidiary companies?

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

AFAIK, no.
Subsidiaries are usually AA or A corps that have a significant amount of stocks owned by the AAA corp.

[Doc Chase]

AFAIK, no.
Subsidiaries are usually AA or A corps that have a significant amount of stocks owned by the AAA corp.

They may have their own extraterritoriality, however.

[cndblank]

First Corporate Extraterritrial sites must be cleary marked. Likely if they are not marked then they might not be able to claim that right.

Even if Corps run the shows, national governments are going to be very sensitive able that sort of thing and their citizens.



Another thing to consider is that the laws they operate under have to be posted and freely available.

A UCAS citizen working or visiting an Ares extraterritorial site should be able to find out what is legal and and what is not with a simple matrix search.

That means that there is some impact with public opinion and that some lip service must be paid to due process for non corporate citizen SINNERs other wise they are going to hear about it in the form of public opinion and red tape.

[cndblank]

They may have their own extraterritoriality, however.

I thought you had to be pretty big to get Extraterritoriality at least with any major country.

The Triple As can make it happen. The AA corps....

[Doc Chase]

I thought you had to be pretty big to get Extraterritoriality at least with any major country.

The Triple As can make it happen. The AA corps....

IIRC, Universal Omnitech is classified as a AA corporation. I do believe they're more than large enough to be granted extraterritorial rights.

[Xahn Borealis]

So, a certain location has ExTe (stupid contraction) as long as it makes it obvious? So if I want a secret evil experiment stereotype lab somewhere to be legal, my best bet is to hide in some heavily guarded office building, like an MCT Zero Zone? Also, AFAIK, with regards to A, AA, AAAs, an A-level corporation is regarded as a multinational, similar to a modern-day corp like Microsoft or something. AA has ExTe, while AAA has ExTe and a seat on the Corporate Court.

[Mäx]

I thought you had to be pretty big to get Extraterritoriality at least with any major country.

All AA have extraterritoriality in every country that recinizes the busines accords, the countries dont get any say on who has Exte thats for Corporate court to deside.

[cndblank]

I guess the difference is do you want it secret, secure, and legal, you will with your own Extraterritorial site.
A really big corp will have lots of sites and might be able to hide one special lab among the all the others.
And you have a lot of room to wiggle even if it may be illegal or damaging to your public image if you are on your own turf.
Just as long as they don't catch you at it, or you can farm out the illegal testing.

Even if caught you can destroy the evidence and witnesses, or you can blame it on "rogue elements".

Also even if you go with deniable, you have to be careful.

The more secure you want something the higher grade of personnel you need to use.

You put enough Mitsuhama personnel and gear in and it wouldn't be that hard to prove it was an Mitsuhama operation.



There was a shadow talk of a extraterritorial Mitsuhama black zone where they had their most secure labs one of the paranormal creatures books.


Totally black. Nothing goes in. Nothing comes out. No connection to the matrix.
Any runners caught would be interrogated, executed, and then be buried with a sack of quick line in the several square miles of orchards that surrounded the site.
All was extraterritorial so no concerns.

Was that legal under MTC and the Corporate Courts laws?
Maybe not, but no one is going to ask very many questions around a bunch of missing sinless runners who should have known better.

[hobgoblin]

nothing like a town that do not exist on any official maps?

los alamos didnt exist, officially, during the second world war. And i think the soviets had one of two places, at least, with a similar status, vor various reasons.

buy enough ground, put a fence, a dense forest, then another fence, and declare it all extraterritorial and no fly zone and presto, its basically a black hole on the map.

[Martin_DeVries_I...]

I went into it a little bit.

Just as an aside, Bobby, I see at the end of that file you had a little newsflash about Serrin and Geraint. Was that just a bit of a callback reference, or had you intended for that to flesh out a bit in other products?

[Ancient History]

It was an Easter egg for the old-timers. As screwed up as they were, the Serrin Shamanadar novels had some great characters. I had played with the idea of addressing it later...but yeah, that's probably never going to happen now.