NZPA
Australian bank ANZ is this year's winner of the Roger Award for the "worst transnational corporation" operating in New Zealand.
The judges said ANZ won because a funds fiasco involving ING New Zealand - which is part-owned by ANZ - was "pure greed capitalism" at its worst.
More than 13,000 investors had money frozen ING New Zealand's Diversified Yield Fund and Regular Income Fund. Many investors argued the funds were marketed as safe when they invested in risky collaterised debt obligations.
Rio Tinto Aluminium was runner-up for the second year running because of its "blithe disregard of the environment and its massive carbon dioxide emissions".
Telecom, a finalist for every single year of the Roger Award, was third because it "really excelled itself in providing poor service and treating its customers like rubbish".
The finalists were ANZ, BNZ, Infratil, Newmont, Rio Tinto Aluminium NZ, Rymans, Telecom, Transpacific and Westpac.
Auckland City Council beat the New Zealand Business Roundtable to win the "accomplice award".
The awards are named after former finance minister Sir Roger Douglas and are organised by two activist organisations.
The judges this year were Paul Corliss, a life member of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union, writer Christine Dann and Bryan Gould, a former Waikato University vice-chancellor and former and Labour Party MP in the United Kingdom.



