Please make “characters” “factionless”, and shift the “factions” to companies as an identity. Make players join a faction when they join a company. What ever that company founded as, they should become when they join that company.
Example: john is “white” Ie factionless. he joins a Cov Company and becomes part of “cov” and gets access to the faction vendor etc. If john leaves x company, he becomes factionless again.
This will allow to correction of many problems and will also allow people to shift around companies more effectively.