12F.2 - DEFINITIONS.
12F.2 DEFINITIONS.
As used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:
1. "Active business operations" means all business operations
that are not inactive business operations.
2. "Business operations" means engaging in commerce in any
form in Sudan, including by acquiring, developing, maintaining,
owning, selling, possessing, leasing, or operating equipment,
facilities, personnel, products, services, personal property, real
property, or any other apparatus of business or commerce.
3. "Company" means any sole proprietorship, organization,
association, corporation, partnership, joint venture, limited
partnership, limited liability partnership, limited liability
company, or other entity or business association, including all
wholly-owned subsidiaries, majority-owned subsidiaries, parent
companies, or affiliates of such entities or business associations,
that exists for profit-making purposes.
4. "Complicit" means taking actions during any preceding
twenty-month period which have directly supported or promoted the
genocidal campaign in Darfur, including but not limited to preventing
Darfur's victimized population from communicating with each other;
encouraging Sudanese citizens to speak out against an internationally
approved security force for Darfur; actively working to deny, cover
up, or alter the record on human rights abuses in Darfur; or other
similar actions.
5. "Direct holdings" in a company means all securities of
that company held directly by the public fund or in an account or
fund in which the public fund owns all shares or interests.
6. "Government of Sudan" means the government in Khartoum,
Sudan, which is led by the National Congress Party or any successor
government formed on or after October 13, 2006, including the
coalition National Unity Government agreed upon in the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement for Sudan and does not include the regional
government of southern Sudan.
7. "Inactive business operations" means the mere continued
holding or renewal of rights to property previously operated for the
purpose of generating revenues but not presently deployed for such
purpose.
8. "Indirect holdings" in a company means all securities of
that company held in an account or fund managed by one or more
persons not employed by the public fund, in which the public fund
owns shares or interests together with other investors not subject to
the provisions of this chapter. Indirect holdings include but are
not limited to mutual funds, fund of funds, private equity funds,
hedge funds, and real estate funds.
9. "Marginalized populations of Sudan" include but are not
limited to the portion of the population in the Darfur region that
has been genocidally victimized; the portion of the population of
southern Sudan victimized by Sudan's north-south civil war; the Beja,
Rashidiya, and other similarly underserved groups of eastern Sudan;
the Nubian and other similarly underserved groups in Sudan's Abyei,
Southern Blue Nile, and Nuba Mountain regions; and the Amri, Hamadab,
Manasir, and other similarly underserved groups of northern Sudan.
10. "Military equipment" means weapons, arms, military
supplies, and equipment that readily may be used for military
purposes including but not limited to radar systems or military-grade
transport vehicles, or supplies or services sold or provided directly
or indirectly to any force actively participating in armed conflict
in Sudan.
11. "Mineral extraction activities" include exploring,
extracting, processing, transporting, or wholesale selling or trading
of elemental minerals or associated metal alloys or oxides, including
gold, copper, chromium, chromite, diamonds, iron, iron ore, silver,
tungsten, uranium, and zinc, as well as facilitating such activities,
including by providing supplies or services in support of such
activities.
12. "Oil-related activities" include but are not limited to
owning rights to oil blocks; exporting, extracting, producing,
refining, processing, exploring for, transporting, selling, or
trading of oil; constructing, maintaining, or operating a pipeline,
refinery, or other oil field infrastructure; and facilitating such
activities, including by providing supplies or services in support of
such activities, provided that the mere retail sale of gasoline and
related consumer products shall not be considered oil-related
activities.
13. "Power production activities" means any business
operation that involves a project commissioned by the National
Electricity Corporation of Sudan or other similar government of Sudan
entity whose purpose is to facilitate power generation and delivery
including but not limited to establishing power generating plants or
hydroelectric dams, selling or installing components for the project,
providing service contracts related to the installation or
maintenance of the project, as well as facilitating such activities,
including by providing supplies or services in support of such
activities.
14. "Public fund" means the treasurer of state, the state
board of regents, the public safety peace officers' retirement system
created in chapter 97A, the Iowa public employees' retirement system
created in chapter 97B, the statewide fire and police retirement
system created in chapter 411, or the judicial retirement system
created in chapter 602.
15. "Scrutinized company" means any company that is not a
social development company that meets any of the following criteria:
a. The company has business operations that involve contracts
with or provision of supplies or services to the government of Sudan,
companies in which the government of Sudan has any direct or indirect
equity share, government of Sudan-commissioned consortiums or
projects, or companies involved in government of Sudan-commissioned
consortiums or projects; and meets any of the additional following
criteria:
(1) More than ten percent of the company's revenues or assets
linked to Sudan involve oil-related activities or mineral extraction
activities, less than seventy-five percent of the company's revenues
or assets linked to Sudan involve contracts with or provision of
oil-related or mineral extracting products or services to the
regional government of southern Sudan or a project or consortium
created exclusively by that regional government, and the company has
failed to take substantial action.
(2) More than ten percent of the company's revenues or assets
linked to Sudan involve power production activities, less than
seventy-five percent of the company's power production activities
include projects whose intent is to provide power or electricity to
the marginalized populations of Sudan, and the company has failed to
take substantial action.
b. The company is complicit in the Darfur genocide.
c. The company supplies military equipment within Sudan,
unless it clearly shows that the military equipment cannot be used to
facilitate offensive military actions in Sudan or the company
implements rigorous and verifiable safeguards to prevent use of that
equipment by forces actively participating in armed conflict, for
example, through post-sale tracking of such equipment by the company,
certification from a reputable and objective third party that such
equipment is not being used by a party participating in armed
conflict in Sudan, or sale of such equipment solely to the regional
government of southern Sudan or any internationally recognized
peacekeeping force or humanitarian organization.
16. "Social development company" means a company that is not
complicit in the Darfur genocide whose primary purpose in Sudan is to
provide humanitarian goods or services, including medicine or medical
equipment, agricultural supplies or infrastructure, educational
opportunities, journalism-related activities, information or
information materials, spiritual-related activities, services of a
purely clerical or reporting nature, food, clothing, or general
consumer goods that are unrelated to oil-related activities, mineral
extraction activities, or power production activities.
17. "Substantial action" means adopting, publicizing, and
implementing a formal plan to cease scrutinized business operations
within one year and to refrain from any such new business operations;
undertaking significant humanitarian efforts on behalf of one or more
marginalized populations of Sudan; or, through engagement with the
government of Sudan, materially improving conditions for the
genocidally victimized population in Darfur. Section History: Recent Form
2007 Acts, ch 39, §2