Cambodia: Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) rubber plantations

Between 2009-2011, three of HAGL’s wholly-owned subsidiaries were granted more than 20,000 hectares of land in Ratanakiri for rubber plantations, in excess of legal limits. Much of this land fell within the territories of local Indigenous communities. The extensive loss of critical natural resources has had a severe impact on livelihoods and food security. Religious and cultural practices of the communities continue to be impeded by the loss of spirit forests and burial grounds. IFC has been connected to HAGL via different financial intermediaries: Vietnam Enterprise Investments Limited, TPBank and VPBank. There have been two CAO complaints setting out multiple IFC failures to supervise their clients, and the communities are in a protracted dispute resolution process with the project company. Financial intermediary lending via TP Bank, a major Vietnamese bank, remains active. Through the mediation, the size of the concessions have been significantly reduced, but 12 villages continue to advocate for compensation and land return. IFC’s repeated due diligence and supervision failures with respect to the three Vietnamese private equity and commercial banking clients that invested in HAGL demonstrates a need for a standalone FI standard to improve accountability.