In 1973 the United Nations published an influential study x of the emergence of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and their impact on the world economy in general and less developed countries (LDCs) in particular. The Report was based on a painstaking collection of statistical data and other information on TNCs broadly covering the 1950s and 1960s, The Report's significance, apart from being one of the very few documents containing a large amount of information on the subject, lay in the fact that for the first time an official and authoritative body explicitly recognised that the operations of TNCs can be a source of conflict and in particular that the pursuit of corporate objectives may well be incompatible with the goals of national development in the LDCs. In fact, both the Report and much of the debate that it generated exhibited a sense of urgency reflecting the discovery of existing or impending conflict. Thus, the Group of Eminent Persons, set up to consider certain problems in greater depth and provide recommendations for national and international action, noted.