Costello Enterprises

Costello Enterprises, Inc. is a Lovia-based multinational corporation that licenses and manufactures consumer electronics and conducts multidisciplinary scientific research at its many laboratories, most of which are located in Lovia, the United States and Canada. Its founder and incumbent CEO is currently Christopher Costello, who created it to "unify all of his pre-existant economic enterprises through, and to allow him to venture further into scientific research and development."

Its primary location, the Costello Enterprises National Laboratory, is located in the East Sylvania region of Peace Island.

History
Shortly after the Lovian Civil War came to a close, Christopher Costello began purchasing substantial plots of land across Lovia. In early February of 2012, he revealed his plans to establish a corporation of his own, which would preform science research and produce modern technologies for both the consumer and professional markets.

In May 2011, Costello began a consultation with the people of Lovia about the possibility of starting some genetic engineering projects. Although the majority were in favour, there was loud dissent from some groups; in particular the CCPL declared itself strongly opposed to the plans. When research began on the 18th of May, they organised the Noble City bioengineering protests, 2012.

Apart from its scientific research, CE also owns the Utkin-Kowalski Salt Mine.

In September of 2012, it purchased .loNet from GoYou for six million Lovian dollars.

Bioengineering
Although Costello Enterprises has not accomplished much yet scientifically, the company has big aspirations. The branch of the company that focuses on biological technology is working on developing transgenic organisms, specifically plants, for applications in medicine and agriculture. A few of their current goals are to develop genetically modified plants that express proteins like the cry toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis, herbicide resistant genes and antigens for vaccinations. Though much of this has already been achieved elsewhere in the world and these procedures are nothing new, the company believes that these will serve as a starting point, or as the "first stage" in a larger effort to develop new and useful biological technologies.

In the case that the company does successfully produce a new variety of plant with some sort of medicinal, agricultural or health value, they have plans to try and have their creation passed by the appropriate Lovian Ministries. If successful, the company will claim intellectual rights over the plant variety, but will establish it under a free, open-source licence permitting other developers to study and further alter the plant as they see fit. When all is said and done, they will see about distributing these plants for free to subsistence farmers.

This sparked the short-lived 2012 Noble City bioengineering protests.