ATP blacklists companies for links to cluster bombs, mines

Denmark’s DKK700bn (€66.6bn) labour-market supplementary pension fund ATP has added seven stocks to the list of companies it will not invest in on social responsibility grounds, with most of the newly blacklisted firms found to be involved in making cluster bombs.

ATP said it added the seven companies to its exclusion list even though the pension fund did not actually invest in them.

“The companies are either directly or indirectly involved in the production of weapons that contravene conventions,” it said.

ATP said it was blacklisting Romanian military aerospace technology manufacturer Aeroteh, Israeli weapons and auto components manufacturer Ashot Ashkelon, China Aerospace International Holdings – the Hong Kong subsidiary of China’s main satellite developer China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation – and China Spacesat.

It also added Russian manufacturer Motovilikha Plants JSC, Chinese firm Norinco and South Korean weapons and machine tools maker S&T Dynamics to the list.

According to details on ATP’s exclusion list, S&T Dynamics is being excluded because of anti-personnel mine manufacture, whereas the other six corporates were added because of cluster bombs.

The exclusion list now contains 28 companies.

Cluster bombs work by ejecting smaller bombs over a wide area mid-flight and because of this are said to be dangerous for civilians – both during attacks and for a long time afterwards, as many remain unexploded for some time.

Their use is prohibited by countries that have ratified the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.

According to Dutch peace campaign group PAX, cluster bombs have been used in the past decade in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Georgia, Cambodia, Libya, South Sudan, Ukraine and Syria — where they are still being used.