SCIAF Swoop on Vulture Funds

SCIAF is swooping on corporate opportunists in a new campaign against “Vulture Funds” – multinational companies who buy up developing countries’ debts with the sole intention to profit by suing them for many times the original price paid.

SCIAF campaigners are looking for members of the public to sign a petition to force the UK government to help outlaw the morally bankrupt practice.

SCIAF Campaigns Assistant, Lexi Barnett, said:

“When people hear about Vulture Funds they are universally horrified and can’t believe it is legal for corporations to rip poor countries off in this way. Vulture Funds are the lowest-of-the-low and risk damaging the prospects for better healthcare and education of some of the poorest countries in the world. It completely undermines the huge amount of good work being done to make poverty history. We want the public to help us pressure the government to change the law and make Vulture Funds illegal. With enough pressure, we can stop vulture funds profiting from poverty.”

In Zambia the vulture fund Donegal International is demanding five times the price of the country’s original debt which it bought from Romania. At the same time 68% of people in the country live on less than a dollar a day, life expectancy is 37 years, and one in three children are unable to attend school. As this disgraceful corporate practice is not yet illegal, Zambia is now being forced to pay £7million to a private company for no benefit.

Please sign our online Vulture Fund petition.

10th July 2007