Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway’s $1.68 trillion Government Pension Fund Global, announced it is excluding two companies from the pension giant’s portfolio due to their contribution to “serious human rights violations.”
Norges Bank also maintained its observation on another company due to the risk of “gross corruption” and revoked the exclusion of a fourth company.
The bank’s Council on Ethics recommended excluding French conglomerate Bolloré S.E. and its majority owner, Compagnie de l’Odet S.E., “due to an unacceptable risk that the companies contribute to or are responsible for serious human rights violations.” According to the bank, Bolloré has a significant ownership stake in Socapalm, which operates oil palm plantations in Cameroon.
The council’s investigations into Socapalm’s plantation operations revealed labor rights violations “including rape, sexual violence and harassment of women by supervisors and security guards.” Socapalm’s workforce consists mainly of contract workers or day laborers, almost none of whom have an employment contract and who earn less than the legal minimum wage. The company also allegedly docks workers’ pay for social benefits they never receive, and the workers can be fired at will.
“Moreover, Socapalm has extended the plantation to areas belonging to local communities and made it difficult for them to access their properties, which also weakens their livelihoods,” the council wrote in its recommendation.
According to the council, similar abuses and sexual harassment of women and female workers have been reported for many years at several plantations in Liberia and Sierra Leone that belong to Luxembourg-based Socfin, a holding company of oil palm and rubber plantations in which Bolloré also has a significant ownership interest.
“Bolloré should have sufficient influence to improve the situation at the plantations if the company so wished,” the council wrote. “Neither Cie de l’Odet nor Bolloré seem to acknowledge the risk of contributing to serious norm violations relating to the plantation business.”
On the council’s advice, Norges Bank’s executive board also decided to continue its observation of actions by Canadian private jet maker Bombardier Inc., observation initiated in March 2022 due to an “unacceptable risk that the company is contributing to or is itself responsible for gross corruption.”
The recommendation was based on “the fact that Bombardier or its subsidiaries could be linked to allegations or suspicions of corruption in six countries over a period of more than 10 years” related to bribery or suspicious transactions worth more than $100 million. The council added that during the observation period, Bombardier has provided “limited documentation to show how the company’s anti-corruption and anti-money laundering systems work in practice.”
Finally, the board announced it has decided to revoke the exclusion of Atlanta-area manufacturer Mativ Holdings Inc., which was excluded in 2013 for producing tobacco. The firm lifted the exclusion because Mativ has stopped making tobacco products.
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Tags: Bolloré SE, Bombardier, Corruption, Council on Ethics, Government Pension Fund Global, human rights abuses, l’Odet, Mativ Holdings, Norges Bank, Norges Bank Investment Management, Socfin