A US investment and asset management firm specializing in distressed companies. Bought Veolia's operations in Israel, including a dump site in the occupied West Bank and a wastewater facility that serves illegal settlements.
Oaktree Capital Management is a U.S.-based multinational investment management firm, with $97 billion worth holdings as of 2015. Oaktree bought Veolia Israel in 2015 from, after its former parent company, Veolia Environnement S.A., was subject to substantial pressure over its involvement in the Israeli occupation.
T.M.M. Integrated Recycling Industries, a subsidiary of Veolia Israel, owns and operates the Tovlan waste disposal site, located in the occupied Jordan Valley. In addition to serving the neighboring Jordan Valley Jewish settlements, the Tovlan site also serves some of Israel’s largest West Bank settlements, including Neve Ya’akov in East Jerusalem, Ari’el, and the Barkan Industrial Zone. However, most of the waste that arrives at the dump originates from Israeli cities outside the occupied territories. This violates international humanitarian law, which prohibits the use of land and other natural resources in an occupied territory for the civilian purposes of the occupier.
In addition, as a part of its acquisition of Veolia’s activities in Israel, Oaktree bought Veritis Environment, an Israeli environmental and energy group. Veritis operates the Ayalon wastewater treatment facility, which serves several cities and towns in central Israel, including the illegal settlement of Modi’iln Illit, one of Israel’s largest West Bank settlements, and the entire Mate Binyamin Regional Council, which includes illegal settlements in roughly a fifth of the area of the occupied West Bank. In 2014, Israel decided to expand the capacity of the Ayalon facility, in order to enable the expansion of these settlements.
- In December 2019, the Brown University Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Practices passed a recommendation that the University divest from companies facilitating human rights abuses in Palestine, including Oaktree Capital.