Corporate Shadow Wars

Since the rise of the Corps to power, corporations have competed with each other. While some corporations are content with clashing under the rules of the open market, most hesitate to engage in less savory methods to gain a leg up over their competitors.
For the longest time, Corps would participate in open and armed conflicts. To that end, many corporations financed their own private navy & armed forces to engage in these conflicts. These forces were vital in the The Great Pirate War. After the end of the war, as the Clockwork Federation seized a large amount of control and began to reign in the unlimited powers the corporations have taken for themselves, the Corps found it harder and harder to maintain their old ways of open armed conflicts to solve their disputes.
As a result of this shift in the political landscape, most Corps adapted by engaging in more covert operations against each other. In modern times, nearly all the most powerful corporations have departments dedicated to espionage, counter-espionage, blackmail, kidnapping and sabotage. In a reaction to these developments the Clockwork Federation supposedly has massively expanded the "Enforcement" department of the Patent Bureau to keep step with the new covert warfare the Corps are engaging in.

Corporate Espionage Incorporated

Where there is a need, someone will step up to fill the demand. With a growing need for corporate covert operations, many new Corps established themselves to fill this need. Many of these new covert operations Corps are themselves merely branches of major big corporations, hidden behind a layer of shell companies and dubious ownership to provide plausible deniability.
Many bounty hunting agencies have in recent years branched out and established hidden sub-organizations to cater to a kind of contract that can not be publicly advertised while making use of their already established pool or mercenaries. Among the more well know (though officially denied) divisions is the "Hunter's Blacklist" of the Hunter's Mark Agency.