A Swedish fund today announced it has excluded the Canadian company Agrium from its portfolios due to "violations of human rights through imports of phosphates from occupied Western Sahara".
The Seventh AP Fund, managed by the Swedish government, invests in around 2.600 companies globally. That said, approximately 50 of them have been excluded from the investment fund as they "fail to live up the minimum standards of respect of human rights, environment and anti-corruption".
The fund published today 15 December 2014, a revised
list of companies excluded from its portfolio. Among them are, for the first time, Agrium.
Agrium started the controversial imports from the occupied territory in 2013. See more about that imports in the June 2014 report
P for Plunder.
The Seventh AP Fund revises its list of excluded companies twice a year. Earlier this month,
the Norwegian investor KLP announced it too had divested from Agrium over the same ethical concerns.