Weapons, Bnp pension fund excluded shares of Indian Hindustan

Ukraine was the last nation to exit the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines. In Italy, on the other hand, that treaty has taken deep root with Law 220 of 2021 and is having important effects on the investments of many financial entities. The latest case to be highlighted is that of the pension fund of Italian employees of Bnp Paribas, which discovered that it held shares in the Indian company Hindustan Aeronautics.

Hindustan is on the blacklist of Nummus.info, the Trentino-based consultancy firm, in which the Italian Bishops' Conference and a number of Italian dioceses participate, which has drawn up a list of companies potentially linked to the anti-personnel mine and cluster bomb sector. A list published in January this year in the wake of Law 220 and adopted by some Italian financial intermediaries, particularly banks and management companies.

Blacklists are explicitly provided for by Italian law, which has, however, created a great deal of confusion in the market, as documented on several occasions in the pages of Plus24. The Bnp Paribas pension fund is among those who have adopted Nummus's black list. Hindustan shares were notably present in the Robeco QI Emerging Markets Active Equities fund, which belongs to the Dutch management company Robeco.

At that point, a discussion took place between the Dutch company and the pension fund to find a solution.

As of today, to the best of our knowledge, Hindustan shares are no longer present in Robeco's specialised emerging markets fund.