With An n-Foot Pole

Corporations sometimes need to distance themselves from certain markets or products. While this is sometimes a matter of dishonesty, although this is rarely the case in our Imperial business community, more commonly it's a simple matter of protecting reputational assets, either those of the company or those of its customers. Not every product or market, after all, is something that would be considered entirely respectable by the Names, Numbers, and Novas or by one's most desirable customers - even when it is entirely legal and ethical - and yet it would be a shame to leave their money on the table.

The customary methods of doing so have evolved their own nomenclature in Imperial business circles, named in accordance with the traditional metaphor for those things one would prefer not to touch: the 12' pole.

And so, we have:

the 6'-brand: A "six-brand" is a veil so thin it's barely there at all. (It is, after all, shorter than 12'.) It is, indeed, usually the case that everyone is perfectly aware that all a given company's brands belong to the same company and are thus associated; it's merely that everyone also agrees, as a matter of courteous social convention, to pretend that they aren't.

Even if the same house, and possibly even the same designers, are working on refined professional attire for Directorate members, haut couture for the debutanté attending the Banquet of the Season, tailored military uniforms for flag officers, and delightful nightwear for any of them later in the day, it makes everyone more comfortable to quietly ignore the connection.

Another common use of the 6'-brand is for testbed projects; a great many technology companies sell borderline-experimental or "bleeding-edge" products under a special brand intended to ensure that the inevitable issues of devices barely out of R&D are kept discretely separate from those of their trusty main product line.

the 12'-subsidiary: The 12'-subsidiary pushes the veil a little further. That said, the connection is still obvious to anyone who cares to do a little digging at the Office of Incorporates or into their finances, but the members of the primary company's Directorate can usually count on not being asked what their subsidiaries are doing in social situations, and few who aren't knowledgeable about the industry for some reason are likely to be aware of it.

Of course, most subsidiaries exist for practical reasons, such as joint ventures, need for a legal buffer, working around sovereign liability issues, and the like. A true 12'-subsidiary is one that only exists for reputational separation. To extend on the fashion example above, the company in question might desire a slightly greater reputational firewall between its fashionable products and, say, its manufacture of military utility uniforms, heavy work gear, or other soft goods such as K-blankets for catching debris. Practicalities of fiber engineering aside and psychosomatics likewise, a visible connection between one's lingerie and plasma-resistant reentry quilts can rather take the bloom off the rose.

the 24'-franchise: And then we come to the more serious situation of the 24'-franchise.

Now, a 24'-franchise is not a regular franchise. Astroburger is a franchise, and thanks to some of the galaxy's most effective branding, there is no-one on this side of the afterlife who is not aware of every branch's relationship to the parent company. Everwell Health Management Systems, Novacorpora, HabCapsule, Valuematic Vending, they're all franchise operations in part, and no-one's even slightly confused about who the parent corporation is.

(One particularly unusual example of this mode is Min Rosell Combine Mercantile, which has licensing relationships with most of the Big 26 and dozens of other corporations to sell quality-arbitraged versions of their products under their own Spacer's Choice, Good Sophont, and Rosell Better Living brands, and yet it is not particularly difficult to determine the underlying source, for all that said sources will stolidly refer any queries or contacts concerning these products back to the Combine Mercantile.)

A proper 24'-franchise, on the other hand, defies the traditional franchise model inasmuch as the independent operators in such a franchise or licensing relationship is usually expressly prohibited from selling under the parent's branding. A common variation of this is when the parent is licensing its technology - and, by contract and quiet inspection, will guarantee safe and proper use - but wants to disclaim any and all connection to what the franchisee, or rather, their customers want to use it for.

A good example of this would be certain Novacorpora franchisees. While decency forbids going into details, suffice it to say that there are more than a few body modifications in relatively high demand across the galaxy which do not bear any mention in society. The Novacorpora Directorate is, naturally, delighted to have found a way to take their money and still, should anyone be crass enough to imply a connection, shrug and point out that it would be grossly improper of them to exert noncontractual restraint on the use of their technology. "Barbarians. What can you do?"

Another variation on the 24'-franchise exists to preserve the customer's reputational assets. In parts of the Worlds, there are many people who wish to do business with Imperial corporations who would rather not be known to do business with Imperial corporations. While not as resilient against, say, government intrusion or sophisticated investigation as a proper 48'-veil, a well-set-up 24'-franchise can save face adequately for many such potential customers, and save leaving a market unserved for the honest merchant.

and the 48'-veil: The 48'-veil is the deepest, darkest one, and the one that is most easily confused with an arrangement designed to cover up some sort of corporate malfeasance. That's because it's a perfect arrangement to cover up almost any sort of corporate malfeasance; it's just not used that way.

A properly engineered 48'-veil is a carefully engineered deep separation that ensures that ownership splits into multiple chains via an assortment of blind trusts, boutique companies, smart contracts, mazes of ever-shifting AI-generated ephemeral corporations, holding stacks, etc., etc., across multiple jurisdictions, many of them selected for their complete refusal to cooperate with each other, and the way the money flows is, if anything, even more obscure and involves a lot of cryp and inconvenient-to-trace physical commodity assets.

Ideally, if you work really, really hard at investigating, you won't find your way through this thicket to the beneficial owner, but you might find out that the chain of command apparently ends at a shadowy synthespian figure operating under a nym-of-a-nym who calls himself "Daríë Neïdar" (Ser One-Person) or "Daríë min Ólish" (Ser of-the-clan-of-Ólish, i.e., a ciseflish).

This one is used when a corporation never wants anyone ever to connect them to whatever is being done in public for the protection of their reputational assets. (This is actually quite uncommon: most things in this category are ethically untouchable; but on rare occasions the ethical course may involve selling to markets otherwise best avoided.)

It is also used when dealing in markets which require great protection for the customer's reputational assets. Where a 24'-franchise wouldn't succeed, because the people probing into the customer's private transactions are competent criminal investigators, intelligence agencies, or the like, a 48'-veil can open even those markets to the guiding corporation.

And where such is the case, these are the places where the light of commerce most needs to shine - even if under a veil.

– Business Slang of the Starfaring Age, Aurum Press (6900)