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Environmental Justice

Equator Principles complaint: Financiers to Papua LNG

In December 2025, Jubilee Australia was one of six organisations that filed a world-first formal complaint to the Equator Principles. The complaint is against MUFG Bank and any other Equator Principles Financial Institution that may participate in financing the proposed Papua LNG project in Papua New Guinea. The Equator Principles area a voluntary financial sector initiative and 130 financial institutions in 38 countries are signatories to the Equator Principles.  

The complaint alleges that financing to Papua LNG would appear to breach not one, but six, of the ten Equator Principles. This includes what appears to be non-adherence to multiple International Finance Corporation Performance Standards. This includes highlighting a host of very serious human rights, biodiversity and climate concerns, as well as concerns about project transparency.  

The project could affect 12,700 rural, mostly Indigenous Peoples. Yet there is a lack of community information materials explaining the project, its risks, options or communities’ rights under human rights law and international standards. There is no verifiable evidence that the project has Free, Prior and Informed Consent. There are also additional concerns regarding gender and potential evictions. The project area of influence includes a staggering 100 new-to-external science or undescribed-by- external science species. It is not possible to understand, let alone mitigate, risks to individual species or their impact on critical habitats, – if science has never studied them. The project area includes at least 27 threatened species on the IUCN Red list, such as the Pig-nosed turtle. There are also concerns for the Bulmer’s Fruit Bat – one of the 100 most critically endangered species in the world. There are also concerns about a lack of public transparency. This includes the lack of a full, up-to-date Human Rights Impact Assessment, a Climate Change Risk Assessment and Environmental Impact Statements. There is no public upstream decommissioning plan – necessary to understand what will happen to the site when the project ends. The cumulative impacts of several fossil fuel projects have not been considered.  

The complaint notes that these concerns should also consider a broader context where there are multiple current or recent overseas legal or regulatory cases against companies involved in Papua LNG or their shareholders. TotalEnergies – which is leading the project – is facing a criminal complaint that alleges “complicity in war crimes, torture and enforced disappearance in Mozambique”. Another company involved, ExxonMobil, last year sued its own shareholders to prevent them from bringing climate resolutions.   

At least 1 in 10 Equator Principles Financial Institutions have ruled out financing to Papua LNG.  

Read a summary of the complaint here.  

Read the full complaint here.