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By Stefania Spezzati and Gwladys Fouche
LONDON/OSLO (Reuters) – One of many Nordic area’s largest traders has bought its holdings in Palantir Applied sciences due to issues that the U.S. information agency’s work for Israel would possibly put the asset supervisor prone to violating worldwide humanitarian legislation and human rights.
Storebrand Asset Administration disclosed this week that it had “excluded Palantir Applied sciences Inc. from our investments due (to) its gross sales of services to Israel to be used in occupied Palestinian territories.”
The investor, which manages about 1 trillion crowns ($91.53 billion) in belongings, held round 262 million crowns ($24 million) in Palantir, a spokesperson instructed Reuters.
A consultant for Palantir, based mostly in Denver, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Storebrand mentioned Palantir had not replied to any of its requests for data, first lodged in April.
The info analytics agency, co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, offers militaries with artificial-intelligence fashions.
Earlier this 12 months, it agreed to a strategic partnership to produce expertise to Israel to help within the ongoing warfare in Gaza.
Palantir has beforehand defended its work for Israel. CEO Alex Karp mentioned he was proud to have labored with the nation following the Hamas assaults in October final 12 months and in March instructed CNBC that Palantir had misplaced workers and that he anticipated to lose extra over his public assist for Israel.
Storebrand’s exit follows a suggestion from Norway’s authorities in March warning companies about participating in financial or monetary exercise within the Israeli settlements within the Palestinian territories, the asset supervisor mentioned in its third-quarter funding assessment printed on Wednesday.
The Worldwide Court docket of Justice, the United Nations’ highest court docket, mentioned in July that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories together with the settlements was unlawful.
Israel’s overseas ministry rejected that opinion as “basically mistaken” and one-sided, and repeated its stance {that a} political settlement within the area might be reached solely by negotiations.
Storebrand mentioned its evaluation indicated that Palantir offers services “together with AI-based predictive policing programs” that assist Israeli surveillance of Palestinians within the West Financial institution and Gaza.
Palantir’s programs are supposed “to establish people who’re more likely to launch ‘lone wolf terrorist’ assaults, facilitating their arrests preemptively earlier than the strikes that it’s projected they’d perform,” Storebrand mentioned.
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