Danish pension fund for academics, MP Pension, has revealed it is excluding security company G4S from its investments due to “risk of repeated human rights violations”.

In particular, MP Pension said such risk of G4S “contributing to the systematic violation of human rights in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates” has led MP Pension to sell all its shares and exclude the company.

"We exclude G4S because we have considered that the risk of repeated and persistent breaches of MP Pension's responsible investment policy is too high if we remain invested in the company," MP Pension director, Jens Munch Holst.

MP Pension is following a trend of Nordic pension schemes that have recently announced their decision to exclude G4S.

These include Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global and KLP, which both excluded the company due to breaches of human rights violations.

G4S declined to comment but referenced a statement issued in November 2019 on its work in the Middle East.

"Any human rights abuse is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated under any circumstances. At G4S, we invest in substantial resources to ensure that our employment policies and practices are consistent with international conventions, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the ILO core labour conventions. We recognise that migrant workers are far from home and potentially vulnerable and it is critical that we all follow the Group’s policies to safeguard their wellbeing."

On the exlcusion by Norges Bank, it said in November: "G4S takes these matters extremely seriously and has engaged with the Council closely and co-operatively. We are determined to fully address their concerns."

"Since meeting with the Council in January 2019 we have taken significant steps to strengthen our migrant worker practices across all of our operations including updating our Migrant Workers Policy and Migrant Workers Recruitment Agency Code of Conduct, and appointing new welfare officers and a migrant worker coordinator."

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