Swiss lender UBS has failed to fully meet recommendations for closely monitoring potential business conduct risks within its passive holdings, according to an OECD investigative body.
In November, the Swiss National Contact Point urged UBS to “take further steps” to align its passive investment practices with the body’s responsible business conduct guidelines following a complaint over its holdings in two US private prisons.
However, only one of its three recommendations was fully met, the government body concluded in a follow-up statement published last week, with the Swiss NCP encouraging UBS to address the “outstanding aspects”.
The Swiss NCP is a government body that investigates potential breaches of OECD guidelines.
Although the bank had taken “meaningful steps” in engaging with index providers to “reinforce” its expectations with respect to human rights in passive index funds, the NCP said the lender had not taken a “proactive or leading role” in initiating or advancing discussions with other banks or investors.
The Swiss NCP had also recommended UBS include its passive investments within its overall risk screening for business conduct risks. UBS argued that contractual obligations to clients made that difficult and that index providers decided what companies to include in their indices.
However, the NCP said where human rights risks relating to companies are identified in an index fund, “direct engagement” with those firms could still be considered. Not doing so meant its previous recommendation had only been “partially addressed”.
The NCP’s findings stem from an initial complaint filed by non-profits — BankTrack, Coalition for Immigrant Freedom and Worth Rises — against UBS and other lenders, including Barclays, HSBC and the Swiss National Bank, regarding investments in private prison companies CoreCivic and GEO Group.
The non-profits alleged the two prison firms committed human rights violations and abuses against migrants and others, including forced labour, the withdrawal of food and water, and the suspension of visitation rights.
Expressing disappointment with the Swiss NCP’s final statement, Bianca Tylek, executive director at Worth Rises, said it is hard to have faith in the OECD’s formal complaints process when there is “little recourse” for violations of its business ethics guidelines.
While the NCP “reaffirmed” that passive holdings should be part of a bank’s human rights due diligence, Tylek said in an emailed statement that UBS has “done nothing” to resolve its initial complaint.
Ryan Brightwell, human rights campaign lead at BankTrack, said the case highlighted the urgent need for “strong regulation” for human rights due diligence that fully includes banks and investments.
UBS was contacted for comment.