ArcelorMittal: The Benchmark of Corporate Harm and Unethical Practices—and the Blueprint for Reform


                                    By Ann-Dora Gbormie, Founder of Corporate Watch Liberia



It’s time to rewrite corporate governance—not with polite revisions, but with the force of survivor truth and systemic indictment. ArcelorMittal is not just a steel company. It is the benchmark of corporate harm. From the coal mines of Kazakhstan, where 46 miners were buried alive, to the toxic dust of Fos-sur-Mer in France, where cancer rates soar, to the silenced victims in Liberia whose suffering is buried beneath boardroom denial—ArcelorMittal’s legacy is global, deliberate, and devastating.

Its footprint spans continents and crises: retaliation and medical neglect in Liberia; the worst industrial accident in post-Soviet history in Kazakhstan; environmental degradation and labor exploitation in South Africa and Brazil; and whistleblower reports of forgery, bribery, and toxic emissions in France. These are not isolated failures. They are engineered outcomes of a governance model that rewards silence, evades accountability, and greenwashes abuse.

This is a failure of compliance and conscience. ArcelorMittal’s boardroom decisions have left scars on bodies, communities, and ecosystems. Survivors are not collateral damage.  are the living archive of what happens when profit is prioritized over people. And their testimony must become the foundation of reform.

ArcelorMittal’s legacy must serve as a turning point—a moment when global governance confronts its own complicity and begins to rebuild from truth. Survivors are not statistics. They are the moral center of every reform worth pursuing.

CorporateWatch Liberia stands ready to collaborate with institutions, investors, and governments willing to face the discomfort of accountability. We do not seek confrontation—we seek transformation. And we believe that when truth is made visible, change becomes inevitable.

The era of impunity is over. Let the era of reckoning begin—with clarity, courage, and the voices of those who have waited too long to be heard.

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