Article:

Reuters: “Nordic investors reject Dakota pipeline operator’s allegations” by Nerijus Adomaitis (Oslo) & Ethan Lou in Calgary; Editing by Edmund Blair.

Excerpt: Nordic investors rejected on Tuesday allegations in a lawsuit by the operator of Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) that they divested from the project due to pressure from Greenpeace and other environmental groups.

The pipeline’s operator Energy Transfer Partners LP sued Greenpeace last week, saying the negative publicity against it, its sister company Energy Transfer Equity LP and other firms caused billions of dollars in damage.

Nordic bank Nordea, Norwegian private pension fund Storebrand, Norway’s public sector pension fund KLP and Norwegian commercial bank DNB, mentioned in the lawsuit, said their decisions to divest from the DAPL and companies involved was a result of their own due diligence.

KLP, which manages more than 600 billion Norwegian crowns ($77.70 billion) in assets, divested around $70 million in ETP, Phillips 66, Enbridge Inc., and Marathon Petroleum Corporation in March.

“We find it puzzling that ETP refers to KLP’s decision in its discussion of alleged damages when the company made no effort to avail itself of multiple opportunities for comment,” KLP’s acting head of responsible investments Annie Bersagel told Reuters.

“We did not divest from ETP as the result of pressure from Greenpeace, and would have gladly communicated this to the company if they had returned our messages,” she added. KLP said in March its decision was based on “an unacceptable risk of contributing to serious or systematic human rights violations.” – read full article.

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