THE 10 WORST CORPORATIONS OF 2004

"It is never easy choosing the 10 Worst Corporations of the Year – there are always more deserving nominees than we can possibly recognize. One of the greatest challenges facing the judges is the directive not to select repeat recipients from last year's 10 Worst designation.

The no-repeat rule forbids otherwise-deserving companies – like Bayer, Boeing, Clear Channel and Halliburton – from returning to the 10 Worst list in 2004.

Of the remaining pool of price gougers, polluters, union-busters, dictator-coddlers, fraudsters, poisoners, deceivers and general miscreants, we chose the following – presented in alphabetical order – as the 10 Worst Corporations of 2004:

Abbott Laboratories: Drug-Pricing Chutzpah

AIG: Deferred Prosecutions On the Rise

Coca-Cola: KillerCoke.org vs. CokeKills.org

Dow Chemical: Forgive Us Our Trespasses

GlaxoSmithKline: Deadly Depressing

Hardee's: Heart Attack on a Bun

Merck: 55,000 Dead

McWane: Death on the Job

Riggs Bank: The Pinochet Connection

Wal-Mart: The Workfare Company"

Specifics of corporate travesties here.

Original Worst Corporations story here.

For an amazing sideline on this issue, read this candid interview with John Perkins, author of The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man