Norway Panel Proposes Raising Bar for Wealth Fund Company Exclusions

A government-appointed committee has proposed changing the ethics rules for Norway’s $2.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund, including raising the threshold for excluding companies and allowing investments in some nuclear-related stocks. The review followed a pause in ethics-based divestments after the Trump administration objected to the fund’s withdrawal from Caterpillar over the use of its bulldozers in Gaza and the occupied West Bank; Norway’s government has denied that the pause was intended to avoid upsetting the United States. No divestments have been made during the pause, and recommendations have been routed to the fund’s operator rather than the independent Council on Ethics, whose role was shelved during the review. Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg has cited both the fund’s importance to Norway’s public finances and the difficulty of distinguishing civilian from military business, as a small number of companies make up a large share of its portfolio. The proposals will inform the government’s decisions on the fund’s ethical framework.