I am struggling to find information on The Syndicate

[Enkidoh]

If I remember right there was a thread recently here where Anonnymoose and a few others went into detail about the Syndicate and how they're structured, so I'll try digging it out.

In a nutshell though, the Syndicate is a group of the six most richest merchants and tradesmen in the city, a position on which can be apparently bought with enough gil (this is how Raubahn became a Syndicate member - it was a result of a high stakes gladiatorial fight he did, which won him ownership of the Colosseum and a place on the Syndicate).

Even though Ul'dah is officially a sultanate with an autocratic head of state, as Ul'dah's trade has become so vital for it's existence the Syndicate ended up holding the real power - adopting policies that steadily erode the power of the throne and which benefit the individual members of the group (this is shown with the construction of the aetherytes - it's the reason why Vesper Bay lacks one because the Path of the Twelve, and their successor, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, refused to play favourites with the Syndicate and were thus punished by the Syndicate forbidding an aetheryte to be set up there.

Accordingly, given their oligarchical nature, the Syndicate has increasingly been flaunting their muscle, defying the will of the Sultana and essentially eroding her position to little more than a figurehead. Thus, there is two major partisan lines in the Syndicate, the Royalists, who would prefer to retain the royal family as the head of state and make the Syndicate more subservient to he or she, and the Monetarists, who would rather scrap the monarchy completely and take complete control of the country, effectively making Ul'dah a corporate republic.

Naturally, on the Syndicate only Raubahn is a Royalist - everyone else are Monetarists, which has increased tensions within the organization itself.

This page explains a bit about the Syndicate and it's current membership status.