Volvo Group

Checked on 6 August 2026. The company's own English-language homepage states: 'Merkavim Ltd. is a modern, top-of-the-line bus manufacturer, jointly owned by Volvo Bus Corporation & Mayer Cars & Trucks Ltd.' Its model range includes Mars and Mars Defender. This is the primary confirmation that Volvo has not divested; the site does not describe any model as armoured, and does not identify customers.

Full-year 2025 net sales of SEK 479.2 billion, down from SEK 526.8 billion in 2024; adjusted operating income of SEK 51.2 billion (65.7); adjusted operating margin 10.7% (12.5%); operating cash flow SEK 21.9 billion; industrial operations net cash position SEK 63.0 billion; return on capital employed 25.5%; proposed ordinary dividend SEK 8.50 per share plus an extra dividend of SEK 4.50. Martin Lundstedt is named as President and CEO. Establishes the scale of the business and that it is under no financial stress, which is why exclusion arguments should rest on principle and fiduciary risk rather than on share price effect.

Read the entries precisely. Mayer's Cars and Trucks Co. Ltd. appears at entry 97 of Annex I for activities (e) and (g); Merkavim Transportation Technologies Ltd. appears at entry 102 for activity (e). Both are recorded with Israel as home State. Volvo Group and AB Volvo do not appear in Annex I, and do not appear in the Annex II list of seven enterprises found no longer involved. OHCHR received 733 submissions alleging the involvement of 596 businesses, prioritised 215 for review given resource constraints, and found reasonable grounds in respect of 158; it states expressly that work continues on those not yet addressed. Non-listing therefore means out of scope, not yet reviewed, or not established; it has never meant cleared. The assessment period ran from 2 August 2019 to 30 April 2025.

The primary field record on the equipment strand. States that 'Merkavim is jointly owned by Volvo Group (26.5%) and its Israeli distributor, Mayer's Cars and Trucks (73.45%)', and that Mayer's, as Volvo's exclusive representative in Israel, supplies equipment to the Israeli Ministry of Defense and services to the Israel Prison Service. Documents Volvo machinery in demolitions including three homes at Umm Al Khair in the West Bank on 18 February 2025, nine homes in Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem on 16 December 2024, and fourteen houses at Jabal Al-Mukaber in occupied East Jerusalem in January 2023, with further instances running back to 2007 across the West Bank, Gaza and the Naqab. Records a Volvo statement of 8 June 2025 acknowledging that 'there will be instances of noncompliance or misuse by other parties' and emphasising its limited control over products after sale, particularly through secondary markets. Page valid until 29/08/2025.

The dated incident list, with Volvo's response sought and published alongside it. Records Volvo machinery in demolitions by an Israeli military unit in Rafah documented in November 2024, January 2025 and April 2025; a Volvo bulldozer in the demolition of three houses at Umm Al Khair in February 2025, leaving more than fourteen people homeless; Volvo machinery at Sama Ariha in January 2025; a Volvo digger in the demolition of nine homes in Silwan in December 2024, leaving 35 people including 15 minors homeless; a Volvo wheel loader destroying infrastructure at Umm al Kheir in June 2024, leaving 24 people including 15 minors homeless; and, in the Naqab, a family home at Beer Hadaj in May 2025, a mosque at Um Al Hiran in November 2024, and roughly 47 houses at Wadi Al Khalil in May 2024 leaving some 300 people homeless. Volvo Group responded that 'without further details regarding exact vehicle used… it is not possible for us to investigate when and where the product could have been sold', that it sells through the private importer Mayer's Cars and Trucks, and that its control over second-hand markets and the end use of long-life products across multiple owners is highly limited.

Swedish public broadcaster coverage of A/HRC/59/23, published 3 July 2025 and updated 5 July. Carries Volvo Group's position in full: that it follows international guidelines including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights; that it has no operations and no staff in Israel and sells through a dealer; that because its products have long lifespans and change owners frequently its control over their use is limited; and that it does not share the criticism, which it believes is based on insufficient and partially incorrect information. The company's press chief Claes Eliasson told SvD the same week, 'Vi håller inte med henne om hennes kritik': we do not agree with her criticism. Establishes the company's own account, and that the report reached Swedish national television, SvD, Aftonbladet, Expressen, Dagens Industri and Göteborgs-Posten within days.

The strongest source on this company, and the only one in which a UN body names Volvo Group itself. Paragraph 46: 'The Korean HD Hyundai and its partially owned subsidiary, Doosan, alongside the Swedish Volvo Group and other major heavy machinery manufacturers, have long been linked to the destruction of Palestinian property, each supplying equipment through exclusively licensed Israeli dealers. Volvo's licensee is an OHCHR database-listed company and together they own Merkavim Transportation Technologies Ltd., which produces armoured buses sold to service colonies. Since at least 2007, Volvo machinery has been used to raze Palestinian areas, including in East Jerusalem and Masafer Yatta... After October 2023, Israel increased the use of the equipment of those companies in the urban destruction of Gaza, including in flattening Rafah and Jabalia, after which the military obscured their logos.' Paragraph 50 records that 'Caterpillar, HD Hyundai and Volvo excavators and heavy equipment have been used in the construction of illegal colonies for at least 10 years', and paragraph 51 that Doosan and Volvo machinery was used on the Jerusalem Light Rail lines connecting settlements to West Jerusalem. Paragraph 47 concludes that these companies 'have continued supplying the Israeli market despite abundant evidence of the criminal use of this machinery'.

The primary field record on the shareholding strand. Puts ownership at 73.4% Mayer's Cars and Trucks and 26.5% Volvo Buses. Records that the armoured Mars Defender was developed on a Volvo B11R 6x2 chassis to Israeli military specification with Israel Military Industries, the Israeli Transportation Ministry, the Israel Police and Egged; that Merkavim supplies buses to settlements in the occupied West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied Syrian Golan; and that deliveries include 62 Volvo 'Mars' buses to Egged in June 2024 for the Jerusalem Envelope area with 90 more planned, 30 Volvo Mars buses to regional councils including the Golan Regional Council in January 2023, four Mars Defenders to the Central Company for the Development of the Shomron in August 2023, and 71 armoured buses worth NIS 106 million to settlements in the Jerusalem area, Mateh Binyamin, Mount Hebron, Gush Etzion and the Jordan Valley in 2016. Also records prisoner transport vehicles built for the Israel Prison Service and used to move Palestinian prisoners, services to its Nachshon unit, and a service centre in the Mishor Adumim industrial zone. Page valid until 17/10/2024.

The International Court of Justice found Israel's continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful and held settlements and their associated economic activity contrary to international law, noting obligations to abstain from economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the occupied territory that entrench its unlawful presence. The governing ruling for demolition equipment and for transport infrastructure serving settlements, and the framework on which procurement and exclusion decisions rest.

Places Volvo on the American Friends Service Committee's screens for Settlement Industry, Wall and Checkpoints in Palestine, and Weapons and Military Equipment. Records the Merkavim shareholding at 26%, buses used to transport Palestinian prisoners for the Israel Prison Service, and Mayer's Cars and Trucks supplying the Israeli Ministry of Defense with vehicles, parts and maintenance services. Its Economic Activism Highlights record Brown University's Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility recommending divestment in December 2019, a civil suit filed by Palestinian claimants in March 2016 naming Volvo among the defendants, and the Students' Society of McGill University divestment resolution of 15 March 2015. Page last updated 22 August 2022, so its figures are older than the Who Profits and UN sources above.

Retained from the earlier version of this profile: Richard Falk, then UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, named Volvo Group among companies said to be involved in Israeli settlement activities. We were unable to re-verify the wording of this statement at the source in August 2026; it is retained because it is the earliest UN-level naming of the company and it is superseded in any event by A/HRC/59/23 above.

The earliest recorded exchange of this kind. The Resource Centre put an allegation to Volvo on 3 December 2011 that its equipment had been used to demolish homes in occupied East Jerusalem, allegedly leaving six children homeless, and published the company's response on 13 December 2011. Establishes that Volvo has been on notice of the pattern, and answering it in substantially the same terms, for fifteen years.

Retained from the earlier version of this profile: early documentation of Merkavim's Mars Defender buses serving settlements in the occupied West Bank. We were unable to re-verify this page at the source in August 2026; the underlying claim is independently established by the Who Profits Merkavim profile above.