"KLP uses new criterion to ban Indian firm with Myanmar military link"

Norway’s Kommunal Landspensjonskasse (KLP) has announced it is divesting Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, India’s largest commercial port operator, on the grounds that its partnership with the Myanmar military breaches the pension fund’s responsible investment policy.

The NOK805bn (€79bn) municipal pension fund said this was the first time it was exercising a due diligence-based divestment, under new criteria in its guidelines for responsible investments that were added last year.

...The municipal pension provider, Norway’s largest, said Adani Ports had been under scrutiny from international investors over its project to build a container terminal in the city of Yangon on land leased from a Myanmar military-owned conglomerate.

[...]

PE has contacted Adani Ports requesting a comment on the matter. In a letter to the National Stock Exchange of India...it said it would abandon the project and write-down in full the related investments if Myanmar was classified as a sanctioned country by the US government...

[...]

The wording in the new guidelines that KLP has used to assess Adani Ports is the statement that the pension fund “can decide due diligence-based divestments from companies if there is an unacceptable risk to contribute to the violation of KLP’s guidelines based on a combination of country, sector or company risk.”