When in doubt, explosives solve all problems.
The way I see the setting, being a fairly generic Cyberpunk sort, the big AAA megacorps are all essentially above the law. They're extra-national, have their own private military forces, and they tend to hire criminals to go do things like steal data or extract personnel from their competitors so they can get an edge. The world for the general person is often either being a corporate drone or "wage slave", living in some sort of out of control urban sprawl, or eking out an existence on the fringe of society. Coffin hotels and the like (as seen, almost, in real life Japan) are a thing, space is at a premium, the environment's going downhill, and so-on.
...And pretty much ALL of those AAA megacorps can and will do whatever amoral things they want, with little expectation that anyone but another giant company could touch them. Sumeragi probably isn't alone in having a standing bounty out for anyone with psychic powers. So, Mother and Binary are just par for the course as far as setting assumptions go.