That worked fine before the modern global economy. Now? It's the death-knell for industry in your country. Without a global government agreement you simply can't bust up megacorps like you used to- they're effectively above the law.
It seems to me that your statement is in error.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ba95cff0-4fcd-11e4-a0a4-00144...
Also, in the United States, Amazon has generally not fared well when it came to avoiding collecting local taxes when local authorities decided to put their feet down:
No one can stop them (Google)? Of course they can. It's up to countries to change their tax laws if they think they are not fit for the job.
Corporations are amoral, and so conform to local laws only because it is economically efficient to do so, not out of ideological adherence to principles of justice.
Great, so don't write "above the law". Hyperbole is annoying and distracts from real, important discussions about these kinds of things.
Consideration of the fact that multi-national corporations transcend national law-makers is part of "real, important discussion about these kinds of things", as you put it.
When you write things that are false, it does not help a conversation go anywhere useful.
The exemplary area in which corporations are effectively above the law is tax arrangements, where multi-national corporations can take advantage of their multi-national status to pay lower amounts of corporation tax than companies in all the national jurisdictions in which they operate.
The corporations are effectively above the law because they are legally paying lower taxes than those other companies. That is, they get preferential treatment by satisfying the letter of the law, but not the intent, that being evidenced by current international efforts to close these loopholes. Such issues can only be addressed by multi-national or even global agreements, as Omniusaspirer said.
I am glad that we have cleared up the difference between being literally and effectively above the law, but I doubt we'll make any progress towards agreement about what being effectively above the law might mean. As we have already circumvented the HN efforts to avoid debates that aren't going anywhere several times, I guess I'll leave it at that. Have a nice day!
edit: Just to be clear, my above definition would also extend to arbitrary numbers of joint jurisdictions. So if corporation X, doing business in jurisdictions A, B, and C, can engage in behaviours within jurisdiction A that are unavailable to corporation Y, which only does business in jurisdictions A and B, then X would be effectively above the law with respect to Y. This definition seems very natural and clear to me: one group is allowed to do things another group isn't by some special status, ergo, they are effectively above the law.