A new book called “The Trojan Bourse” by Dan Harris, a leading specialist in the regulation of secondary financial markets, analyses how the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement seeks to influence divestment and exclusion of stocks from investment portfolios.

The book has a foreword by Yifa Segal, International Director of UKLFI, and examines efforts to implement BDS in relation to securities markets by reference to several case-studies in which UKLFI has been involved, including the UNHRC blacklist, the New Zealand superannuation fund, and the Norwegian KLP fund.

Harris notes that BDS activists try to influence the divestment and exclusion of stocks from investment portfolios where they believe those stocks have some link to Israel. He warns that manipulating securities markets will undermine the important public interest in ensuring their integrity.

Harris likens the BDS movement approaching the securities market to the Greek myth of the Trojan Horse – in which the Greeks besieging Troy constructed a wooden horse, hid soldiers inside it, and left it outside the city, presenting it as a votive gift to the goddess Athena. The Trojans wheeled the horse into Troy, where the Greek soldiers inside it jumped out, captured the city and sacked it.  In the retelling of the story by the Roman poet, Vergil, the Trojan seer, Laocoon, warned his people: “I fear Greeks bearing gifts”.

Harris says “A wooden horse is again at the gates of the citadel. The securities markets are encircled by a wall of laws and financial regulations …  Professional BDS actors with no stake in the securities markets, present the votive gift of information and leave it outside the gates of the citadel  But the gift is not what it seems.  It is misinformation concealing an extreme political agenda within its womb.  Once inside the citadel it is intended that this political agenda will wreak havoc.”

Dan Harris will be speaking about his book at a forthcoming webinar hosted by UKLFI Charitable Trust which will take place on 8 September 2022 at 5pm UK Time.  Details will follow.

The book is available at Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/Trojan-Bourse-Treatise-Activity-Securities/dp/B0B5PN23YQ/ref=zg_bsnr_10898_sccl_19/135-5323004-1510962?pd_rd_i=B0B5PN23YQ&psc=1