US business group to chanllenge Sudan-investment ban

Aug 2, 2006 (CHICAGO) — A U.S. business trade group said on Wednesday it plans to file a lawsuit on Monday challenging Illinois’ law barring state investments in companies that do business with Sudan.

The National Foreign Trade Council, a group representing more than 300 companies that trade and invest overseas, said the lawsuit will be filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago along with a motion asking the court to stop the state from implementing the ban during the course of the lawsuit.

Joining the council in the lawsuit will be five boards of Illinois public employee pension funds, according to a news advisory.

The council said the lawsuit will claim the Illinois law enacting the ban was unconstitutional based on a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2000 that struck down a Massachusetts law related to investments in companies doing business with Burma. The high court ruled that the state cannot enact sanctions that undermine the president’s capacity for effective diplomacy, according to the council.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the Illinois measure into law in June 2005, saying it sends a clear message to the Sudanese government that Illinois does not condone human rights abuses and genocide.

A spokesman for the governor was not immediately available for comment.

The law, the first to take effect in the United States, prohibits the state from investing in Sudan government bonds and bans investments of state and pension funds in companies that do business in or with Sudan. Pension funds were given 18 months to divest about $1 billion invested in such companies. The law took effect in late January.

Similar bans have been enacted in six other states and are pending in other state legislatures, according to the council.

(Reuters)