Hammond Engineering

Hammond Engineering was a corporation based on Lantillies whose primary products were airspeeders, service droids, and, later, black market military exosuits.

History
In circa 200 BBY, the corporation was founded by Synoso Hammond, who was a former merchant and droid engineer from Lantillies and also the cousin of the Governor-in-Chief of Lantillies at the time.

In around 150 BBY, Hammond Engineering oversaw the colonization of Avenelle, which was located on the fringes of the same sector as Lantillies. Like most corporations that had a monopoly on resources on newly-settled worlds, Hammond Engineering developed a pseudo-government that gradually devolved into a sort of military dictatorship, in which the colonists were harshly oppressed by Hammond Engineering's security forces. As a result, many colonists revolted against the corporatocracy in around 80 BBY and in retaliation, the corporation modified their exosuits, initially used to assist staff with construction and transportation, to put down the widespread revolts and terrorist attacks, eventually escalating the discourse into full-scale civil war. The fighting between the colonists and their corporate overseers would last more than a decade before the Galactic Republic became aware of the events and, in response, deployed a Judicial Forces regiment to restore order. After a three-way war between Hammond Engineering, the colonists, and Republic Judicial Forces, order was restored and Avenelle was placed under its own semiautonomous government. A bill was passed in the Galactic Senate, aptly named the "Hammond Act", limiting all corporations' right to colonize or terraform worlds in Republic space. While corporations were still permitted to lead colonization efforts, they must receive permission from both the Senate and the sector-level government their target world was located in. Hammond Engineering remained active after these events, though became solely known for their production of service droids and airspeeders from thereon. Under their public guise, however, Hammond Engineering continued to manufacture armed exosuits that were sold en masse to the black market, where they ended up in the hands of mercenaries and other criminals.