Galactic Trade Federation / GTFED

In the last decades of the Republic Era, the Trade Federation was engaged in a power struggle with the Galactic Republic.⁹ In the year 32 BBY,¹⁰ it was decided to hold a summit on the Outer Rim planet Eriadu to try and put an end to the dispute. However, the Eriadu Conference, as it came to be known, turned into a fiasco when the radical political group known as the Nebula Front appeared. Although the Front failed to assassinate Finis Valorum, then Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, they did manage to kill the Trade Federation’s directorate. As a result, the Neimoidians jumped into the power vacuum, anointing one of their own, Nute Gunray, the new Viceroy of the Trade Federation.⁹ To strengthen their takeover, the Neimoidians ordered the assassination of several key executives of Kuat Drive Yards, whose claim to leadership of the Federation was strong.¹⁰

Under the leadership of the Neimodians,¹¹ who were known for their business skills and cutthroat dealings,² the Federation became one of the wealthiest corporate organizations in the galaxy, and came to control a large portion of interstellar shipping passing through the Outer Rim Territories. It was given representation in the Galactic Senate of the Republic, and used its influential seat to lobby for greater power.¹² Its ultimate goal was to control all galactic trade routes, ports, and freighters, and was willing to do anything to increase profits and avoid Republic taxes.¹³ The Federation maintained exploratory craft during the last decades of the Republic; Everi Chalis’s mother attempted to sell her six-year-old daughter to the captain of one such craft, though the captain refused as Everi was too small, but gave her a packet of nectrose crystals instead.¹⁴ Baktoid Armor Workshop approached Poggle the Lesser of the Geonosians to design droid foundries on behalf of the Trade Federation.¹⁵ The company also maintained droid manufacturing facilities on worlds including Akiva.⁴

The Federation was keen to protect its profit margins; after the agricultural scientist Leo Leonis and his wife Tepha created genetically modified crops for the planet Chrona, the company let their inventions rot in warehouses for the benefit of its own profits. Within a year new crops were distributed, and the Republic settled the court case in the Federation’s favor, despite testimony from Leonis himself.⁸

As of 34 BBY,¹⁶ the Trade Federation was a monolithic organization expanding its reach into the Outer Rim by utilizing loopholes in the Republic’s Free Trade Zone legislation, and continued to increase its sway in the Senate. Galactic industrial conglomerates such as the Federation were responsible for an economic upswing for senators, lobbyists, and entrepreneurs on Coruscant who placed themselves in the service of such groups. Determined to monopolize the Free Trade Zones, the Federation caught the attention of several lommite mining concerns in the Seswenna sector, and embroiled itself with the troubled King Veruna of Naboo.¹⁷