The Council on Ethics maintains its previous recommendation to exclude PetroChina Co Ltd (PetroChina) from the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) due to an unacceptable risk that the company contributes to or is responsible for gross corruption.
The Chinese company PetroChina is one of the largest oil companies in the world. The Council on Ethics recommended in December 2016 to exclude the company because many senior executives in PetroChina and its subsidiaries were accused of accepting bribes in exchange for the award of contracts to suppliers, at the same time as the company had not demonstrated that its efforts to prevent corruption were sufficiently effective. The company has been under observation since May 2017, but has shown little willingness to communicate with the Council on Ethics. In the Council’s view, the company’s lack of assistance in shedding light on the situation gives grounds to question PetroChina’s actual willingness to prevent, detect and deal with corruption. For the observation arrangement to function as intended, the Council is also of the opinion that it is of general importance that a company under observation is willing to share information.
The Council on Ethics submitted its recommendation on 28 February 2020.
Norges Bank published its decision on active ownership on 31 August 2020.