Abstract
Anti-boycott laws are an emerging trend in our legal system, especially in state legislatures. In the last seven years, more than half the states have adopted laws that sanction, in various ways, firms that boycott the nation of Israel. Even more recently, several states have adopted laws that discourage corporations—especially financial institutions—from adopting environment, social, and governance reform policies. In 2021, Texas and Wyoming adopted sweeping laws that punish banks that do not lend to weapons manufacturers and gun dealers after some of the nation’s largest financial institutions had announced plans to stop lending to the firearm industry. A Texas law requires all government contractors to certify in their contracts that they do not discriminate against the gun industry, thereby debarring financial institutions and other companies from state or municipal contracts if they boycott or divest from the protected industry. Similar laws are pending in other states and in Congress. This is the first law review article to explore, in depth, the anti-boycott laws designed to protect the firearms industry from de-banking and important exceptions or potential legal loopholes in these laws. This Article also discusses the economic impact of such laws as well as their legality, especially in terms of corporate rights to free speech.
Recommended Citation
Dru Stevenson,
The Gun Industry and the New Anti-Boycott Laws,
76 Fla. L. Rev.
1073
(2024).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol76/iss4/4