In a ruling released today, Justice Simon Mount said NZSF policies around responsible investing, particularly when making divestment decisions, were unclear.
“So far as exclusion from the fund for alleged breach of human rights standards is concerned, the policies fail to meet the basic requirements of the act in my view and are therefore unreasonable and unlawful,” he said.
Justice Mount ordered the NZSF back to the drawing board. “It follows as a matter of law that the respondent has a duty to reformulate the policy documents.”
In a statement today, NZSF chief executive Jo Townsend said the ruling was being reviewed.
“We recognise that we are investing on behalf of all New Zealanders and that gives people a legitimate interest in how we manage the fund,” she said.
“We will thoroughly evaluate today’s decision and determine how best to respond to it.”
Minto told the Herald today he welcomed the ruling and was pleased Justice Mount praised an earlier iteration of the NZSF’s responsible investment policy that led to shares worth $7.5m in five Israeli banks being divested.
“They had a good policy in 2020, then a mysterious thing happened: the following year they gutted that policy,” he said.
Minto hoped the policy reformulation and NZSF’s application of it would result in divestment from the four companies he had sued over.
“Any reasonable policy would exclude all those companies we’ve identified. What’s going on in the occupied West Bank is unconscionable,” he said.
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter and ICIJ member covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting for business newspapers and national magazines.
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