Okay, so, the Planetary Consortium basically works in three tiers as laid out by Sunward. The Planetary Congress is a representative body with elected representatives on 3-year election cycles. Each habitat wholly under the Consortium (including those who are owned entirely by Hypercorps) gets a number of representatives based on their population to a minimum of 1. In general, this appears to function similar to the US system of representative democracy, only with the power of cyberdemocracy behind it. The Planetary Congress makes rulings and sets public policy on a number of issues which concern individual citizens. However, these decisions appear to represent or guide the Consortium as a whole, and thus private operators are not necessarily bound to the results, a bit like a non-binding resolution. This is the representatives' and public's opinion on things, but they can't do much more than write a strongly worded letter if you don't follow them. What the Congress does for the public, the Ministry does for it's corporate membership. Every corporation who is in the Planetary Consortium gets to appoint a single minister to represent them - with the value of their individual vote weighted based on that corporation's assessed value. Unlike the Congress, policy and legislation set by the Ministry (said to be on topics and issues which are of core concern to the consortium) are binding and held as law across the entire Consortium. This is the real governmental power of the Consortium, and what decisions the Ministry makes on issues is the law of the land in all Consortium member habitats. This is unlike necessarily a standard legislation system because it's not democratic, but more plutocratic. Hypercorps who own no habitats or physical assets can appoint ministers and if their products are valuable their vote holds sway. This is enforced because the Ministry contains the Assembly - the judicial branch almost always appointed out of ministers. And then you have the Hypercorp Council. Made up of shareholders who were original founding entities in the Planetary Consortium, with their percentage shares showing their individual investments in the Consortium as a whole. All of these are major corporations, conglomerates or business consortiums in their own right - but no one outside of the actual 20 or so members of the Council actually know exactly who is on the Council. This is the executive body, who ultimately can make authoritative decisions, overturn cases heard by the Assembly and generally actually hold all the highest power in the Consortium. All that is needed to reach a decision here is a simple majority, not hard when major Hypercorps align. Oversight reports directly to the Hypercorp Council and is handled under their authority, and they can overrule any lower body they like. In general, they try not to go against the flow of public opinion because this would not keep things operating smoothly.