Norway’s biggest pension fund, KLP, said Monday it had dropped US group Oshkosh Corporation and Germany’s ThyssenKrupp from its investment portfolio for selling weapons and equipment used by Israel’s military in Gaza.
KLP — which is separate from Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest — said Oshkosh Corporation was supplying trucks to the Israeli military, which adapts them into armored troop transport vehicles.
The fund also accused ThyssenKrupp of agreeing to supply Israel’s navy, before the outbreak of the war in Gaza, with corvettes and submarines.
“Companies have an independent duty to exercise due diligence in order to avoid complicity in violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian law,” Kiran Aziz, head of responsible investments at KLP Asset Management, said in a statement.
KLP, which managed assets worth $114 billion in the first quarter, sold its holdings in Oshkosh Corporation valued at 19 million kroner ($1.9 million).
It also sold its investment in ThyssenKrupp worth 10 million kroner.
A general view of the headquarters of German heavy industry giant ThyssenKrupp AG in Essen, Germany, on December 11, 2012. (AFP/ Patrik Stollarz/File)
The two companies were excluded on the basis of KLP’s criterion relating to the “sale of weapons to states in armed conflicts that use the weapons in ways that represent serious and systematic breaches of international law governing the conflicts,” KLP said.
The fund emphasized that the two companies had long-established cooperations with the Israeli army, and their deliveries continued after the start of the Gaza war on October 7, 2023, which was triggered by the devastating invasion of southern Israel led by the Palestinian terror group Hamas that killed 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians.
“The transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk state complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide,” UN experts warned in June 2024.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, whose assets are valued at around $1.9 trillion, is also under pressure to divest further from groups accused of helping Israel wage its war in Gaza and continue its settlement policy in the West Bank.
However, earlier this month, the Norwegian parliament rejected moves to toughen rules on its sovereign wealth fund investing in companies operating in the West Bank.
Lawmakers voted by 88 to 16 against a proposal to order the fund to withdraw from companies “that contribute to Israel’s war crimes and the illegal occupation” of the West Bank.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, fueled by vast revenue from the country’s oil and gas exports, is the biggest in the world and has nearly $1.65 trillion invested around the globe.
Israel has faced arms embargoes and the cancellation of arms orders by some countries due to the war.
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