ISRAEL, DEFENCE STOCKS AND DIVESTMENTS: EQUITY’S INTERVENTION WHEN LGPS FIDUCIARIES PLAY AT GEOPOLITICS

The Local Government Pension Scheme (“LGPS”) is typically administered by local authorities. Somewhat incongruously with its localised nature, or even recent pooling measures, there are attempts by those campaigning for boycott, divestment and sanctions (“BDS”) against the State of Israel to extend the reach of the town hall into the geopolitical arena. The decision in R. (on the Application of Palestine Solidarity Campaign Ltd.) v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2020] UKSC 16 is seen by those BDS activists as providing a self-contained roadmap for LGPS divestments and boycotts. They are mistaken. This article considers the questions that remain to be addressed and the need for local government lawyers to look beyond local government law to the rules of equity. When the principles and rules of equity are violated in adopting divestment or exclusion policies, a court of equity will not hesitate to intervene. This is not equity’s incursion into the local government arena. For insofar as the conduct of administering authorities as fiduciaries, or quasi-trustees, is concerned, it was always there.