Asset Managers Seek End to Animal Rights Group Harassment
An asset management company has reportedly filed a lawsuit in a California state court against “Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty” (SHAC), an organization apparently dedicated to closing down a life sciences company that tests pharmaceutical, agricultural and veterinary products on animals, alleging that SHAC has targeted its employees for harassment because the company holds shares in a pharmaceutical company that does business with Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). According to BlackRock’s complaint for injunctive relief, which also named three individuals as defendants, SHAC has held demonstrations at the homes of the money manager’s employees, threatened them and terrified their children. SHAC’s website purportedly displays images of the protests and “names the targeted employees for all the public to see.”
The complaint also apparently contends that one of the defendants “has already been permanently enjoined by a California state court from among other things, any act of violence or making any threat of violence against any employee of the Regents of the University of California or protesting or demonstrating at the homes of such employees.” Two other defendants are allegedly “being prosecuted criminally for their animal rights protests at the homes of employees of the University of California at Los Angeles.” BlackRock alleges that the FBI has identified SHAC as a terrorist group that is committed to driving HLS out of business by pursuing “tertiary targets, which are entities that have absolutely nothing to do with HLS but who have done business with one or more of SHAC’s secondary targets.” See Courthouse News Service, November 10, 2011.
