The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), headed by Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS), has been subpoenaed by a powerful Senate committee about its suspicious dealings.
Well-informed sources revealed that PIF has been subpoenaed by a powerful Senate committee after it refused to voluntarily comply with information requests about its US dealings.
The subpoena, which was issued by the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, targets the Public Investment Fund’s wholly-owned US subsidiaries in connection to the group’s proposed golf deal and “related investments throughout the United States”. But the hearing delved instead into Saudi Arabia’s record of human rights abuses.
In its testimony to the Senate Subcommittee on the investigations, Human Rights Watch said that the US should investigate the Public Investment Fund’s activities, including: whether any assets seized or transferred to the PIF involved the US banking system or touched on entities or activities under the jurisdiction of the US government.
On its face, the hearing was meant to focus on Saudi’s controversial proposed golf merger, including LIV Golf, with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour in June 2023. The $700bn sovereign wealth fund effectively obtained a monopoly over professional golf, while it is also complicit in human rights abuses.
The Human Rights Watch researcher Joey Shea said the Crown Prince has consolidated economic power in the Kingdom, notably under Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) which has approximately US$700 billion in assets under management. This raises serious concerns for American businesses and any possible links to abuses in Saudi Arabia, particularly as the Fund expands its investments in the United States in key sectors of the American economy, including technology, sports, entertainment, and finance.
Human Rights Watch has reported extensively on the Crown Prince’s consolidation of political and security power over the last few years in Saudi Arabia, and the dire implications for human rights.
The PIF under MBS has facilitated and benefitted from human rights abuses directly linked to the Crown Prince, including the 2017 “anti-corruption” crackdown that involved arbitrary detentions, abusive treatment, and the extortion of property from former and current government officials, prominent businessmen, and rivals within the royal family, as well as the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The PIF has invested significantly in sportswashing, an effort to rebrand the country and distract from serious human rights abuses by hosting or sponsoring events that celebrate human achievement, like major sporting events.
As of January 2023, the PIF owned a reported 93 percent controlling share in LIV Golf, raising serious concerns about the role the league may be playing to burnish Saudi Arabia’s image to “sportswash” ongoing abuses committed by Saudi authorities. Human Rights Watch wrote to LIV Golf in August 2022, urging the league to develop a strategy to mitigate the risk of laundering the reputation of the Saudi government. LIV Golf did not respond to HRW’s letter, or indicate that they sought to develop such a strategy.
