The Dutch pub­lic employ­ees’ pen­sion fund, Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP (ABP), has divest­ed from the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny Mylan after learn­ing that the Virginia Department of Corrections had sup­plies of one of Mylan’s prod­ucts in stock for use in exe­cu­tions. A spokesman for ABP — which with net assets of $416 bil­lion is the world’s third largest pen­sion fund — said, ​“As the Dutch gov­ern­ment and Dutch soci­ety as a whole renounced the death penal­ty a long time ago, we do not want Dutch pen­sion mon­ey to be involved in that.” Although Mylan states on its web­site that its prod­ucts are not intend­ed for use in exe­cu­tions, fund man­agers were not sat­is­fied with the com­pa­ny’s mea­sures to keep the drugs out of lethal injec­tions. ABP held €25 mil­lion shares in Mylan in 2014, but began sell­ing them off dur­ing 9 months of unfruit­ful dis­cus­sions with the com­pa­ny. ABP says it sold its remain­ing €9 mil­lion ($10 mil­lion) Mylan hold­ings in full because ​“We thought we have only one step left to show our dis­ap­proval.” The divest­ment is part of ongo­ing efforts by European offi­cials to dis­cour­age exe­cu­tions in the U.S., which the European Union regards as a human rights vio­la­tion. European com­pa­nies are banned from export­ing drugs for use in exe­cu­tions, and sev­er­al European drug com­pa­nies have put dis­tri­b­u­tion restric­tions in place to stop their prod­ucts from being used in lethal injection.

(T. Escritt, ​“Largest Dutch pen­sion fund exits Mylan over death penal­ty con­cerns,” Reuters, August 29, 2015.) See Lethal Injection.

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