TIAA-CREF: Tell Chevron - No Business With Genocide
On May 25th, 2022, Chevron will hold its annual shareholder meeting. That day will mark close of voting by Chevron's shareholders on a resolution that highlights the oil company's funding of the Myanmar military and urges it to adopt a policy of not doing business with governments complicit in genocide and/or crimes against humanity.
As a major institutional investor, TIAA-CREF will have the opportunity to vote its shares in Chevron in favor of this resolution. But in 2018, TIAA-CREF actually voted against the same resolution pressing Chevron to shun governments engaged in genocide. Let's make sure that in 2022, TIAA-CREF takes a stand to oppose corporate support for genocidal regimes.
TIAA-CREF has a proud history of creating a sustainable retirement system for teachers and others in academic, government, medical, cultural and other nonprofit fields. It has a strong tradition of incorporating its members values in their investment choices. It is entirely in its practice of social responsibility for TIAA-CREF to take the position that Chevron should not do business with governments complicit in genocide and other mass atrocities.
More importantly, the shareholders introducing the resolution are publicly calling on Chevron not to recognize the military as the government of Myanmar. In a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the shareholders powerfully urge Chevron to divert into escrow any upcoming payments intended for the Myanmar government instead of giving the money to the military junta.
In its filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the resolution filers state:
The Yadana gas project is governed by contracts between TotalEnergies, Chevron, PTTEP, and the government of Myanmar (through MOGE, itself a government department). Although the military junta has seized control of MOGE’s accounts, it has not been recognized as the legitimate government of Myanmar by the international community and is therefore not a legitimate counterparty to these contracts. It faces competing claims from the National Unity Government – composed of democratically elected leaders of Myanmar – to be the legitimate government and party to the Yadana contracts. The Myanmar government is the legitimate party to the gas contracts. In continuing payments to junta-controlled accounts, Chevron is electing to treat the junta both as a party to their contracts and as the legitimate government.
... Chevron should utilize the international arbitration clauses in its contracts to ... proactively commence arbitration proceedings, requesting that a tribunal decide whether they should treat the military junta, the National Unity Government, or neither as its contractual counterparty. While arbitration proceedings are pending, Chevron should require the gas buyer, PTT, to divert all revenue payments away from the junta into a trust account to be held for the benefit of the government of Myanmar (requesting the tribunal to issue an interim order to this effect).
Chevron is the largest US investor in Myanmar (Burma) and is in partnership with the Myanmar military junta on an offshore gas field project. On March 21st, 2022, the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the U.S. Administration had formally determined that violence committed against the Rohingya ethnic minority by Myanmar's military amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity.
Corporations, such as Chevron, must stop supporting governments engaged in genocide and/or crimes against humanity. Investors, such as TIAA-CREF, must use their power as shareholders to ensure that none of the corporations, in which they own stock, are complicit in genocide.