Bank Hapoalim

In May 2020 Pensions Expert has reported on some LGPS funds investments, including CPF.

See http://www.pensions-expert.com ( which requires free registration), extract only:

A number of local government pension schemes have come under fire over their investments in a troubled Israeli bank, according to research seen by Pensions Expert.

Tel Aviv-based Bank Hapoalim was investigated as part of the US Department of Justice’s probe into offshore tax evasion, and admitted it conspired to hide more than $7.6bn (£6.2bn) from the Internal Revenue Service. 

It has agreed to pay more than $874m to the US Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the New York State Department of Financial Services in exchange for deferred prosecution, according to court documents unsealed last month.

The bank faces an additional $30m fine for its role in the Fifa bribery scandal of 2015; and, in 2019, was placed on a blacklist published by the UN Human Rights Council due to its alleged operations in West Bank settlements.

It has now emerged that a number of local government pension schemes retain investment in Bank Hapoalim, raising concerns among campaign groups that pension funds are failing in their ethical obligations.

Following a story, originally reported in Scottish newspaper The National, that the Lothian Pension Fund has shares worth more than £6m in Bank Hapoalim, research shared with Pensions Expert by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign suggests that a number of other schemes, including Northern LGPS Pool, Brunel Pension Partnership and Cheshire LGPS, retain holdings in the bank.