La Norvegia ha sospeso le regole etiche sui fondi patrimoniali per evitare una vendita di tecnologia da 230 miliardi di dollari
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-11/norway-averted-230-billion-tech-sale-with-oil-fund-ethics-pause
di bloomberg
17 commenti
*From Bloomberg News reporters Ott Ummelas and Heidi Taksdal Skjeseth:*
Norwegian Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg said politicians suspended ethics rules governing the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund after the divestment of Caterpillar Inc. stock stoked fears of a firesale of tech holdings, worth as much as $230 billion.
The move by the $2.1 trillion fund came after ethics advisers pushed it to sell shares in Caterpillar in August because its bulldozers are used in the war in Gaza. That risked setting a “template,” Stoltenberg said in an interview Monday in Oslo. The rules could have led to the fund being told to sell off its most profitable shares.
His comments shed more light on how wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the Trump administration’s attacks on climate and diversity policies are upending so-called ethical approaches to investing. The Norwegian decision to pause the work of the oil fund’s ethics council was a first for an advisory panel that has existed for about two decades.
Money over ethics.
Goes to show that their “ethics” were just virtue signaling all along.
Couldn’t they have made one example, say of caterpillar, and then have a countdown to the next example, thereby giving time to companies to meet ethical standards or be dropped?
The story of Europe. We’re happily the good guys until it starts costing something.
This is actually somewhat beyond the basic point of “let’s drop the ethics to make more money” some are posing it as.
The Norwegian left want to use the wealth fund politically, and the majority of the Norwegian parliament is against this. The danger for a small country with such a large fund used politically has already been hinted at with the criticism connected to the divestment of Caterpillar.
One could argue that “damn that, what is ethically right is right”, and in a perfect world that would be a very valid argument. However, in a dog eats dog geopolitical reality, this is not really a safe course. If the fund is used in such a way, it becomes hard to argue that it is independent of politics.
Hence, this is a bit more than just about earning money. It has ramifications beyond that.
norway has always been the biggest hypocrite nation. sell oil all over the world then cry abour climate change
wow, finally.
now.. if they could dissolve the nobel peace prize committee and give it to Sweden, that would be great
“its bulldozers are used in the war in Gaza” – what does investing ethics have to do with this? They aren’t selling weapons, Caterpillar isn’t boosting their sales to Israel, they are leading world construction manufacturer, their gear is everwhere in the world, they aren’t marketing their bulldozers as being effective in genocides. This is just wild, they are using specific companies to wage proxy political wars. Should I stop wearing Nike shoes if I see some Israel soldier wearing them? What is this
Disgusting. Truly shows the true face of certain people. Ethics are important until it inconveniences us right?
“Oh no. Our ethics laws would have been TOO effective”
The construct of selling Caterpillar because its products are used in Gaza is simply stupid. By the same logic, you should sell Toyota because their trucks are used by a warlords in Africa. Maybe Mercedes because Kim Jong smuggled one into North Korea.
They were suspended because they are illogical and by similar logic, you would need to likely sell everything.
Ethics rules. Just because its trendy. All companies ditch ethics when it affects the bottom line.
This sounds like damage control after the fund was led to deinvest their share of caterpillar by the ethic commission because caterpillar machines were used in Gaza. These machines are used worldwide, or is there any more to it? Do they expect the fund to deinvest every company whose products are used by soldiers of the IDF or the IDF itself?
So this change in rules might just be an expression of loss of confidence in the trustworthiness of judgement of the ethic commission. It’s an attempt to re-establish stability.
Jesus how bad this “news article” is.
First of all, new ethical rules are being written, and during that time the government is responsible for removing and adding companies to the list. And not the council that was responsible for it earlier.
[Here are the rules which have been in effect for now.](https://lovdata.no/dokument/INSO/forskrift/2014-12-18-1793)
And its absolute levels of bollocks in the rules. Companies the government are direct customers of are on the list, for various reasons. And the reason for the immediate change in attitude towards the list was that a leftwing party, SV, tried to come with an media ultimatum, and tried to gather the rest of the left-wing to it. It failed, and the threat of the politicisation of the rules are seen as a threat to the reputation and impact of the fund, causing the rest of the parliament to usher in a review of rules, basis of these rules, and the application of the rules. A key issue is that we need to apply the rules evenly and reasonably, and the current system doesn’t make that possible.
The rules that have been in effect have been ridiculous and naive, with a worldview that is blinded by the “peace dividend”. Production of mines, or ownership in coal, cluster munitions, nuclear, etc have been grounds for exclusion.
And to prove my point, here is the [official list of excluded companies](https://www.nbim.no/no/ansvarlig-forvaltning/etiske-utelukkelser/utelukkelse-av-selskaper/):
Some funny companies that are excluded:
* Airbus
* Cluster munitions and atomic weapon delivery production
* Berkshire Hathaway
* Is invested in companies that use over a given level of coal, despite it only being partial ownership.
* Catepillar
* Are being used in Israel
* L3harris
* Atomic weapons and cluster munitions
* General dynamic
* Atomic weapons
* Boeing
* Atomic weapons
* Lockheed Martin
* Atomic weapons
* Safran
* Atomic weapons
It’s insane that companies aiding in the maintenance of and production of key defence systems that WE rely and plan on are excluded. Most of these companies have huge contracts with the Norwegian state.
As a Norwegian I’m ashamed and I welcome the hate.
Divesting also means you have even less (read: zero) influence over the company. This is why engagement is usually more productive than outright divestment – you can file shareholder resolutions, have meetings with management, raise questions at an AGM etc. Can’t do that with no exposure.