Large multi-national corporations are hoping to be able to sue governments for passing consumer protection laws that reduces their profits, according to charity Wikipedia.

The new and controversial power will be given to companies by clauses in the far-reaching Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, a secretive free-trade agreement currently being thrashed out between twelve countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, USA and Vietnam.

One of the areas of the TTP causing concern is its strong focus on protecting the intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies to the detriment of efforts to provide access to affordable medicines, rather than expensive brand-named products, in the developing world.