Corporate Assassins, are they real?

[edhopper]

It's a mainstay of movies and TV. The corporation that hires a hitman or even has it's own back ops team to take out people who they perceive as a threat to the bottom line. I wonder if any of that really happens?
I know Corporations can act in a callous and even sociopathic way with complete indifference to human life. They also act like organized crime in terms of bribery and skirting the law to get what they want. But have they gone the complete route to murder for hire?
Just an idle muse after watching too much Law and Order and various films that seem to usually star Julia Roberts.

[physioex]

1. Not aware of any such recent incident....

But good example would be hired thugs for hire like Blackwater.

[edhopper]

3. I thought about them too.

I imagine they do things in other countries that we would consider criminal and probably war crimes.
There existence is a testament to our decline as a nation.

But I am referring more to the domestic mob type killing.

[white_wolf]

2. I haven't heard of any examples, but it wouldn't suprise me.

corporations are just as much organized crime as the Mafia, except with no code of honor to hold them back in anyway.

[Mnemosyne]

4. Yes, they are, read 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman." n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. It would not surprise me, but if I were a corporate overlord my assassins

would only be used to take out the outside contractors used to take out the threat. That breaks the line of investigation while putting a buffer between me and the victim.