Fonds de Compensation (FDC) has added the companies AECOM, Fluor and Huntington Ingalls to the list of companies it excludes for involvement in the nuclear weapons industry. All three companies are involved in the US nuclear weapons program.
FDC was created in 2007 as a specialised investment fund to invest part of Luxemburg’s excess pension reserves. It excludes all businesses involved in the production, development, maintenance and trade of nuclear weapons or delivery systems that are specifically designed for nuclear weapons. The exclusion policy applies to all of FDC’s asset management activities.
FDC’s publicly available exclusion list is revised every six months and is based on the findings of research organisation Global Engagement Services (GES). The new divestment decisions come after PAX reported in the November 2014 Don’t Bank on the Bomb Report that when investigating FDC, it found “a number of below the threshold investments in nuclear weapon associated companies in its portfolio.”
PAX commends FDC for taking a critical look at these specific investments and for further strengthening the implementation of its exclusion policies. “FDC’s decision is a good example of how Don’t Bank on the Bomb can be useful for financial institutions.”says Wilbert van der Zeijden, one of the authors of the report. “We flagged our concerns, FDC asked GES to investigate and based on our findings and GES’ advice, FDC took appropriate action.”
The next update of the Don’t Bank on the Bomb report is expected in November 2015 and the decision of FDC will be reflected. FDC’s exclusion list now contains 18 nuclear weapon producers: Aecom, Airbus, Alliant Techsystems Inc, Babcock & Wilcox, BAE Systems, Boeing, Finmeccanica, Fluor, GenCorp, General Dynamics, Honeywell International, Huntington Ingalls, Jacobs Engineering, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Safran and Serco.