Rising number of businesses cut ties with Brunei over gay sex death penalty

LONDON, April 5 - Travel agents, London's transport network and finance houses were among the rising number of companies on Friday to cut ties with businesses owned by Brunei to protest over the Sultanate's introduction of the death penalty for gay sex and adultery.

The Muslim-majority former British protectorate on April 3 began implementing Sharia laws which punish sodomy, adultery and rape with death, including by stoning, and theft with amputation.

As protests mounted globally, a corporate backlash gathered pace after actor George Clooney and singer Elton John called for a boycott of hotels owned by the Southeast Asian country, including the Dorchester in London, the Beverley Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, and the Plaza Athenee in Paris.

STA Travel, a global travel agency owned by privately-held Swiss conglomerate Diethelm Keller Group, said it would no longer sell flights on Brunei's national carrier, Royal Brunei Airlines.

"We've taken this stance to add our voice to the calls on Brunei to reverse this change in the law and in support of LGBTQI people everywhere," the company said in a statement.

Transport For London (TfL), which is responsible for London's transport system, removed adverts promoting Brunei as a tourism destination from the city's public transport network.

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"Given recent information that has come to light, it is clear that this is an issue of great public sensitivity and controversy so the advert will be removed from our network," TfL said in a statement.

Virgin Australia Airlines, the second biggest airline in Australia after Qantas, ended an agreement that offered discounted tickets on Royal Brunei Airlines for staff.

Royal Brunei did not respond to requests for comment.

Royal Brunei has arrangements with about 40 airlines, including British Airways, Air France-KLM and Qantas, that allow it to sell the other carriers' tickets.

British Airways said: "We keep all our agreements under constant review."

Deutsche Bank banned its staff from staying in the nine hotels of the Dorchester Collection, which is owned by Brunei's state-owned Brunei Investment Agency (BIA)..

BIA did not respond to a request for comment.

The Dorchester Collection, however, said its values were "far removed from the politics of ownership."

"We understand people's anger and frustration but this is a political and religious issue that we don't believe should be played out in our hotels and amongst our 3,630 employees," the Dorchester Collection said in a statement on its website.

Source: Reuters, Staff, April, 5 2019

Deutsche Bank’s Brunei hotel ban raises moral bar

LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - Deutsche Bank’s latest strategy for boosting its appeal may be its most effective yet: the German lender headed by Christian Sewing has banned staff from Dorchester Collection hotels after its owner, the government of Brunei, implemented homophobic laws. Shareholders will welcome the fact that employees of a bank whose costs ate up 93 percent of revenue last year will no longer frequent a chain which charges nearly 400 pounds a night for a standard room in London. However, the decision raises the moral bar.

Brunei’s state-owned investment agency owns the Dorchester Collection hotel group, which includes luxury venues such as The Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Oscar-winning actor George Clooney called for a boycott after the government implemented Islamic laws which would impose the death penalty for homosexuality or adultery. Celebrities including singer Elton John have joined in.

Shunning the sultanate is relatively painless for Deutsche, which has limited business in Brunei. Yet like many of its global peers the bank continues to operate in Saudi Arabia, which also has stringent anti-homosexuality laws. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon recently met government-linked clients in the desert kingdom.

Banks and other big multinationals long argued that they had to accept the laws of countries where they do business. But pressure from customers and shareholders is forcing them to set out moral positions. Employers’ efforts to attract and retain a diverse workforce in the West is also increasingly hard to square with maintaining links with repressive regimes.

Big companies generally muster two defences. The first is that if the government is moving in the right direction, a boycott would be counter-productive. This is how companies justified their presence in Saudi Arabia – which recently allowed women to drive – at least until the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents last year. The second defence is that companies have an obligation to their shareholders to weigh the costs of boycotting certain countries against the reputational damage of working with them.

Increased investor demand for companies to meet a range of social and environmental criteria means banks especially will face more awkward questions about business in illiberal countries. So while Deutsche’s Brunei boycott may be relatively cost-free, it will face bigger financial tests in the future.

Source: Reuters, Staff, April 5, 2019

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