The exploratory branch of Outer Rim Oreworks was a division of the said company that used scouts for several purposes, mostly to find undiscovered planets with high concentrations of metals that ORO could extract and sell. Those planets would then be settled and developed, all the while giving ORO a hefty sum in profits.
Hugo Bartyn was an agent of the exploratory branch. Around five hundred years before the Battle of Naboo, Bartyn used long-range spectrometry equipment to analyze the Lamaro system. This new technology revealed that the concentration of useful metals was larger than the amount that previous estimates had given. Bartyn, who had plans of his own, then asked ORO to relieve him from service in the exploratory branch and name him Administrator of the planet Lamaredd instead of sending him to a new exploratory mission