Greenpeace Luxembourg v. Schneider

Background
In September 2019, Greenpeace Luxembourg initiated legal proceedings before an administrative court challenging the Minister supervising Luxembourg’s 19 billion euro sovereign pension fund FDC (Fonds de Compensation).

At the beginning of August, they sent a letter to the Minister in charge of the FDC requesting detailed information on the Fund’s fossil fuel investments that are contributing to the climate crisis, how the fund plans to align its investments with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, and whether the fund takes into account and reports on the climate-related financial risks related to its investments. The Minister failed to respond, indicating his refusal to communicate on this critical matter, and GP Luxembourg filed a lawsuit in order to force disclosure of the vital information. The first public hearing took place on 1 October 2019.

Rulings
In a ruling of the Luxembourg Administrative Court on 17 December 2019, Greenpeace Luxembourg secured a partial win in a legal dispute over access to information concerning the climate-damaging investments of the Luxembourg sovereign pension fund (Fonds de Compensation, FDC).

The Administrative Court declared Greenpeace's legal action against the Minister of Social Security as admissible and found that the Minister breached his legal obligation to timely respond to Greenpeace Luxembourg's request for information. The Court also agreed with Greenpeace Luxembourg that the information requested by Greenpeace is “environmental information” within the meaning of the country's access to environmental information and in accordance with the Aarhus Convention. However, while Greenpeace is entitled to ask this information, the Court concluded that the Ministry had no obligation, as a supervisory authority, to produce information that might be held by supervised authorities, such as the FDC board.

Takeaways
This access to information case had an immediate impact. The pension fund informed Greenpeace that it will be conducting an audit of its carbon footprint and the climate-related financial risks associated with the fund’s investments.

Greenpeace Luxembourg is closely following this development and considering all options to ensure FDC complies with its fiduciary duties in the climate context. Furthermore, the court’s determination that greenhouse gas emissions financed through the pension fund’s investments into fossil fuel companies and the climate-related financial risks associated with these investments is environmental information in accordance with the Aarhus Convention indicates that it is possible to make similar requests in Luxembourg and in other European countries.