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Jardines

Controversies

Controversies tied to this brand in public sources. A listing is not a finding of fault.

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  1. 1832

    Historical involvement in the opium trade

    The company's nineteenth-century commercial expansion included the smuggling of opium from British-controlled India into China. This history remains a significant ethical and historical controversy associated with Jardine, Matheson & Company and the imperial trading system in which it operated. The firm's nineteenth-century origins included trading opium in China. This activity forms part of the wider and highly contested history of the Opium Wars, treaty-port commerce and foreign commercial privileges in China. It is a historical controversy rather than a contemporary corporate scandal, but it remains material to assessments of Jardine Matheson's origins.

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