Attorney General Paxton signed a multistate letter led by Kentucky and West Virginia and addressed to Morningstar, complaining of the egregious anti-Israel bias of its subsidiary, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings firm Sustainalytics. The letter details the numerous ways in which Sustainalytics has pushed a woke social agenda and promoted the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The letter comes just days after Attorney General Paxton announced a multistate investigation into Morningstar and Sustainalytics for alleged violations of consumer protection and anti-BDS laws.
The letter highlights that Sustainalytics rates companies that engage with democratic Israel as equivalent, in terms of ESG compliance, with those that cooperatively conduct business with tyrannical regimes like Russia or China. For Sustainalytics to draw so erroneous a moral equivalency between Israel and China demonstrates how ESG ratings frequently have more to do with promoting a progressive political agenda than advancing good social values.
The letter had the following to say about the grossly inaccurate comparison of Israel to authoritarian countries: “Israel is not like China, Myanmar, Russia, and other nations led by despots. Rather, Israel remains a diverse democracy with ‘strong and independent institutions that guarantee political rights and civil liberties.’ In fact, Israel is the only nation among those in the aforementioned lists that Freedom House rates as ‘Free.’ Sustainalytics’s failure to draw a distinction between Israeli democracy and repressive regimes shocks our collective conscience.”
Read the full letter here.