KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund, has announced that it will no longer do business with two companies that sell military equipment to Israel because it might be used during the Gaza war.
The two businesses are ThyssenKrupp, a German industrial company that produces everything from elevators and industrial machinery to warships, and Oshkosh Corporation, a US-based business primarily focusing on trucks and military vehicles.
According to Kiran Aziz, the head of responsible investments at KLP Kapitalforvaltning, “KLP learned of reports from the UN that several named companies were supplying weapons or equipment to the]Israeli army] and that these weapons are being used in Gaza,”
According to the statement, “We believe that Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp are abiding by our ethical investment standards.”
We have therefore chosen to omit them from our investment universe.
Up until June 2025, the pension fund reported investments worth $1.8 million in Oshkosh and $1.2 million in ThyssenKrupp.
The nation’s largest pension fund, KLP, was established in 1949, and it controls a fund worth about $114 billion. According to its website, it is a public pension fund run by municipalities and businesses in the public sector. Its pension plan covers about 900,000 people, most of whom are municipal employees.
vehicles and warships
KLP claimed to have spoken with both businesses before making its decision and that Oshkosh “confirmed that it has sold, and continues to sell, equipment used by the [Israeli army] in Gaza, mostly vehicles and parts for vehicles.”
ThyssenKrupp informed KLP that it had “a long-term relationship with] the Israeli army]” and that it had delivered four Sa’ar 6 warships to the Israeli Navy between November 2020 and May 2021.
The Israeli Navy will receive a submarine later this year, according to the German company.
When KLP inquired about the checks and balances that were performed when the equipment was delivered, KLP responded that both Oshkosh and ThyssenKrupp “failed to provide the necessary due diligence in relation to their potential complicity in humanitarian law violations.”
According to Aziz, “Companies have an independent duty to exercise due diligence in order to prevent complicity in violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian law.”
previous divestments
The pension fund has previously dissolved partnerships with businesses that have been linked to alleged human rights violations.
KLP divested from 16 businesses in the occupied West Bank in 2021, including Motorola, which it believed were connected to illegal Israeli settlements.
The pension fund claimed that because of their connections to the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, there was an “unacceptable risk” that the excluded companies were “contributing to the abuse of human rights in times of war and conflict.”
KLP also announced that it was acquiring Adani Ports, an Indian port and logistics company, because of its ties to the Myanmar military administration in the same year.
KLP also dissolved its relationship with US company Caterpillar last summer. According to the KLP’s Aziz, the military and local businesses adjust Caterpillar’s bulldozers in Israel and use them in the occupied Palestinian territory after they are used.
Over the past 20 years, United Nations organizations and nongovernmental organizations have issued a number of human rights warnings about the company’s involvement in the destruction of Palestinian homes and infrastructure, she wrote.
Therefore, it is impossible to contest the company’s commitment to prevent it from violating any of the company’s laws in the future.
The most recent action builds on previous similar pronouncements made by several large investment funds in Europe that have cut ties with Israeli businesses due to their involvement in the occupation of West Bank or the Gaza war.
Due to the company’s involvement in providing infrastructure and fuel to illegal Israeli settlements, Norway’s largest sovereign wealth fund announced in May that it would divest from Paz Retail and Energy.
Following a previous decision in December of last year to sell all of Bezeq’s shares of another Israeli company for the services it provided to illegal settlements, this was made.
In recent years, other pension funds and wealth funds have distanced themselves from those who are accused of supporting or supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank or its occupation of Gaza.
The largest pension fund in Denmark dissolved its holdings in February 2024 because it feared that its investments might be used to finance the West Bank settlements.
Source: Aljazeera
Leave a Reply