Deutsche Bank, IFC Rubber Investments Questioned

Deutsche Bank and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) have poured millions of dollars into Vietnamese rubber companies operating in Cambodia that have engaged in illegal logging and forced evictions of local farmers, the environmental rights group Global Witness says in a new report released today. In the report, Rubber Barons: How Vietnamese companies and international financiers are driving a land grabbing crisis in Cambodia and Laos, Global Witness, which is based in the U.K., links Deutsche Bank and the IFC to two Vietnamese firms backing a long list of “shell companies” that, according to the organization, are breaking forestry laws at the expense of eastern Cambodia’s remaining forests and the villages that depend on them. … Drawing on satellite images, government and corporate documents, field visits and exchanges with firms involved, Global Witness deduced that the IFC currently has $14.95 million stake in a Vietnamese-based investment fund investing in Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), a Vietnamese rubber firm listed on the London Stock Exchange.  The organization also says that Deutsche Bank holds another $4.5 million worth of HAGL shares, along with $3.3 million in shares of Dong Phu, a member of the state-owned Vietnamese Rubber Group (VRG). … Combined, Global Witness says, HAGL and VRG alone now control at least 180,000 hectares of rubber plantations in Cambodia. “HAGL and VRG’s ultimate ownership of these [subsidiary] companies lies behind an intricate web of shell companies,” the Global Witness report says. “This allows them to disguise the fact that they have massively exceeded Cambodia’s legal limit on land holdings,” which sets the ceiling for any on person at 10,000 hectares. …

http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/deutsche-bank-ifc-rubber-investments-questioned-23598/