PhillyInc

Ever at your service, the SEC has begun compiling and posting here the names of U.S.-registered companies that do business in countries labeled by the U.S. State Department as supporters of terrorism. At least two firms with major Philadelphia-area operations are listed: AstraZeneca P.L.C. of Wilmington and London (NYSE: AZN) has dealings in Cuba; and Cellegy Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Quakertown (OTC: CLGY) has applied for patents in Sudan. (Most others are ex-U.S. companies). In a press release yesterday, SEC chairman Christopher Cox wraps the initiative in the mantle of serving investors: "No investor should ever have to wonder whether his or her investments or retirement savings are indirectly subsidizing a terrorist haven or genocidal state.". Call it a neoconservative version of socially responsible investing.

Not much publicity of this SEC "service" that we saw. We caught wind of it from Michelle Leder at Footnoted, who wonders "how useful this sort of thing will really be to the typical investor. It’s interesting, but how many people are really making an investment decision based on HSBC having an office in Tehran?" Forget whether restricting the supply of Nexium in Havana, for example, might really prevent the next terror attack in the U.S. Perhaps another reason is hinted in the last line of the press release, which says the SEC undertook the initiative to comply with a provision of the recent supplemental Appropriations Act (Public Law 110-28) requiring the SEC to help trace businesses engaged in mining or oil-drilling in Sudan, which indeed is one of five countries the SEC lists in its new database. The core question, of course, is less about serving investors, and more about engaging vs. isolating countries in the war on terrorism. We'll leave it at that.
- Thomas Ginsberg