The campaign group Foil Vedanta has been campaigning for some years to get mining company Vedanta de-listed from the London Stock Exchange, and on the morning of its AGM in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the company de-listed itself. Not only activists such as Foil Vedanta, but politicians were calling for its delisting following May’s Thoothukudi massacre in Tamil Naduin which 13 protesters were killed and dozens injured, and the success of grassroots activism which has shut down Vedanta’s operations in Goa, Tuticorin and Niyamgiri.
The delisting also followed, as I wrote on My London Diary, the publication of Vedanta’s damning “report ‘Vedanta’s Billions: Regulatory failure, environment and human rights’ with a comprehensive account of the company’s crimes in all of its operations, and of the City of London’s total failure to regulate Vedanta, or any other criminal mining company and revealing the vast scale of tax evasion and money laundering.”
Although the company will continue, and doubtless continue to cheat and pollute, the de-listing will at least deprive it of some of it’s respectabilityand perhaps curtail some of its more damaging activities. Presumably the de-listing will mean no more AGMs in London, and I will miss the annual protests that I’ve attended most years since 2010, though I’m sure that so long as Vedanta continue their crimes anywhere around the world, Foil Vedanta will find some opportunity to protest them here.
Vedanta, owned largely by a billionaire Indian industrialist and his family, is the kind of company that has no place in a civilised world, with a long history of crimes in India, Zambia and elsewhere, attempting to mine sacred lands, dispossesing many, polluting air and water, evading taxes, lying to governments and courts, bribery and corruption, beating and shooting protesters, killing workers with a disregard for safety and more.
Its activities have been met by protests where it operates around the world, particularly in India, and in London where the company was based to get support from the British Government – with David Cameron pleading their case with the Indian Prime Minister and British taxpayers supporting its nefarous activities through our government agencies. Its crimes have been exposed by groups including Foil Vedanta, with detailed research summarised in the latest and earlier reports.
The report, Vedanta’s Billions: Regulatory failure, environment and human rights can be downloaded here. The de-listing, with a Bahamas based family trust buying back the 33% of shares not already owned by majority shareholder Anil Agarwal means that the company will now be much less open to public scrutiny. Though the financial authorities, as the report’s title suggests have failed in their duty over this, as a listed company Vedanta had to publish annual reports and individuals supporting Foil Vedanta were able to buy a single share to attend and ask questions at its AGMs. So while the de-listing was a victory for campaigners, it also presents a challenge, making their campaign more difficult.
