(March 10): The ethics council for Norway’s US$1.8 trillion (RM7.96 trillion) sovereign wealth fund warned that the rolling back of anti-corruption legislation in the US is likely to make it more difficult to identify businesses breaching ethical guidelines.

The US has previously taken a crucial role in securing settlements in cross-border investigations into companies ranging from Glencore plc to Airbus SE and Credit Suisse, resulting in billions of dollars in fines. The outlook for such cases in the future is unclear after President Donald Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to cease enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, effectively hitting pause on US involvement.

“Almost all of our corruption cases have in some way been connected with an FCPA investigation,” said Eli Ane Lund, head of the secretariat for the Council on Ethics. “The whole system that has been established for a company to avoid getting involved in corruption comes from legislation and enforcement, much of it in the US — the US has had a very big impact on this.”

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is advised by an external Council on Ethics that considers issues ranging from human rights violations to environmental damage. Last year, it reviewed companies with potential links to the war in Gaza and the West Bank, and while a handful of cases remain under investigation, the majority have been concluded, the council said in its annual report Monday.

“Before the war in Gaza started, there were many companies that were all ready excluded on the grounds of our criteria,” Svein Richard Brandtzaeg, head of the council and a former Norsk Hydro ASA chief executive officer, said. “We have been criticised for taking too much time but moving too quickly risks making the wrong decisions.”

As of the end of last year, just over a hundred companies were outside the investment universe of Norges Bank Investment Management based on recommendations by the council. It worked with 250 companies in 2024 and advised that 15 be excluded.

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