Coca-Cola’s Business Practices: Facing the Heat in a Few Countries
INTRODUCTION TO THE CASE STUDY:
From January 1, 2006, the University of Michigan in the US put on hold the sale of the products of
The Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) in all its campuses, thus becoming the tenth US University to
do so. The ban was the outcome of a relentless campaign by student activists and trade union
groups, who accused Coca-Cola of violent labor practices in Colombia and of creating
environmental problems in India.
The University of Michigan issued the orders for the ban based on the recommendation of its
University Dispute Board. This was following the inability of Coca–Cola to meet the deadline of
December 31, 2005 that required agreeing on a protocol on the findings of the commission formed
by a set of universities in the US.
The commission had offered to investigate the company’s labor practices and that of its bottlers in
Colombia. Coca–Cola did not want the findings of the commission to have any legal consequences
but the attorneys in an earlier lawsuit against Coca–Cola and its bottlers in Colombia insisted that
the findings should be legally admissible in court of law in the US. Other prominent US universities
that had banned Coca-Cola on similar grounds were the New York University, the largest private
