June 11 — The lawyer who faced criticism from anti-genocide activists as the legal representative of Fidelity Investments will teach at Boston University beginning in the fall.
Eric Roiter — former general counsel for the mutual fund company that has ties to investors with links to the Sudanese government that has committed human right atrocities in the Darfur region — has defended Fidelity’s policy of allowing fund managers to set the standards for portfolios holdings while Fidelity refuses to entirely divest from companies with Sudanese holdings.
Roiter, who also served as a Fidelity senior vice president, will teach at Harvard Law School in addition to the BU School of Law, Fidelity spokesman Vin Loporchio said in a statement. During the 10 years Roiter spent at Fidelity, the company defended its investments in PetroChina and Sinopec, two oil-based companies doing business with the Sudanese government. Fidelity’s actions encourage genocide in Darfur, argues the group Investors Against Genocide.
At a March mutual fund shareholders meeting, Roiter, joined by fund trustee Dennis Dirks, defended Fidelity’s investment practices in the face of angry activists.
Roiter said during the meeting that neither of the two funds being voted on for fund screening — the $9.3 billion Fidelity Capital ‘ Income Fund and the $1.96 billion Fidelity Select Health Care Portfolio — had holdings in Sinopec or PetroChina, and warned against “false dichotomy,” according to transcripts of the March 19 meeting made available by mutual fund information service Ignites.
Investors Against Genocide, however, said Fidelity and its overseas counterpart, Fidelity International, own at least $900 million worth of stock in those two companies.
“We respect the investment decisions and preferences of all of our shareholders,” Roiter said at the meeting. “You do have a choice at Fidelity.”
The proposal to end all investment options tied to Sudan was rejected at the meeting, but received more support from investors — 27 and 28 percent of votes cast by two groups — than activists expected.
The commonwealth of Massachusetts and private organizations, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have divested from companies tied to Sudan, moves some say are largely symbolic rejections of atrocities abroad.
Hurley said BU hired Roiter because he is an “excellent attorney in the field of financial service,” with a “marvelous career record.”
“There is a legitimate debate with respect to investment management and the responsibility they have for the investors in their records,” Cornelius Hurley, director of the BU Banking Law Program, said. “It definitely deserves the attention, but the whole controversy had no bearing over our hiring him at all.”
“We’re just thrilled to have him,” Hurley said.
BU Darfur Coalition President Michelle Shapiro said she is interested in learning Roiter’s position on divestment now that he is not on the Fidelity payroll.
“I hope groups on campus will take advantage of Roiter’s position on the faculty by engaging in conversation with him,” Shapiro, a College of Communication junior, said. “I am curious to hear what he has to say now that he is no longer employed by Fidelity.”
Fidelity did not take the protests against its investments in Sinopec and PetroChina “seriously enough,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro said she could find fault in Roiter’s failure to use his influential position to help eliminate Fidelity’s investments in Sudan-supportive oil companies.
“Though he personally did not invest in the genocide, his silence and inaction are just as harmful to the civilians in Darfur,” she said.
Roiter and Investors Against Genocide were unavailable for comment at press time.
Before working with Fidelity, Roiter was a partner in a Washington, D.C., law firm for 16 years, according to his corporate biography. He has also worked as an adjunct professor at Boston College and Columbia University.
Staff reporter Max Levy contributed reporting to this article.