Military Audit: New Look

New Look - Military Audit

Direct Defence Contracting & Procurement

No public evidence identified of any contract, tender, framework agreement, or memorandum of understanding between New Look and the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD), the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Border Police, or any other Israeli state security body. New Look does not appear in the OHCHR Database of Business Enterprises maintained pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 31/36 and 53/25, which as of the September 2025 update lists 158 enterprises (138 Israeli, 12 European, six American, one Canadian, one Chinese) ¹²³⁴. New Look also does not appear in a direct search of the Who Profits Research Center company database ⁵. New Look is not named in PAX’s The Companies Arming Israel and Their Financiers (June 2024), whose full text was retrieved and searched directly ⁶. No public evidence identified of New Look appearing in SIBAT or other Israeli defence export directories, nor in press releases or trade-press reporting on defence cooperation.

Dual-Use Products & Tactical Variants

New Look’s product range consists of civilian womenswear, menswear, and teen fashion apparel, and No public evidence identified that the company manufactures or markets ruggedised, tactical, mil-spec, or defence-grade product variants. A February 2025 Clean Clothes Campaign / Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (“The Counter”) investigation used customs-code shipment tracking into Israel (October 2023–May 2024, and the trailing twelve months to June 2024) to identify apparel and tactical-gear suppliers feeding the IDF - naming Polaris Solutions, Masada Armour, Hagor, Marom Dolphin, Agilite, Source Tactical Gear, and Kasda among Israeli firms, plus manufacturers in India, Vietnam, and Turkey; New Look does not appear among the entities identified in this investigation ⁷. No public evidence identified of export licence applications or end-user certificates involving New Look and Israeli security end-users.

Heavy Machinery, Construction & Infrastructure

No public evidence identified of any heavy machinery, construction, or engineering business line at New Look; the company’s disclosed operations are limited to fast-fashion apparel retail ⁸⁹. No public evidence identified of equipment, vehicles, or machinery supplied by or linked to New Look in use in Israeli settlements, the separation barrier, or occupied-territory infrastructure projects.

Supply Chain Integration with Defence Primes

No public evidence identified of any component, sub-system, raw-material, or specialist manufacturing supply relationship between New Look and Elbit Systems, whose Who Profits company profile was checked directly for cross-referenced suppliers with no New Look linkage found ¹⁰. No public evidence identified of any such relationship with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, or IMI Systems/Elbit Land Systems. No public evidence identified of joint development, co-production, or technology-transfer arrangements between New Look and any defence prime.

Logistical Sustainment & Base Services

No public evidence identified of catering, transport, fuel, waste-management, facilities-maintenance, telecommunications, or other service contracts between New Look and IDF bases, training facilities, or detention centres. No public evidence identified of shipping, freight-forwarding, or port-handling contracts servicing Israeli military cargo; New Look’s disclosed logistics relationships pertain to routine commercial apparel sourcing and distribution across its stated network of 108 suppliers and approximately 1,124 factories in 19 countries ⁸⁹.

Munitions, Weapons Systems & Strategic Platforms

No public evidence identified of any role, direct or indirect, played by New Look in the manufacture or supply of small arms, artillery, armoured vehicles, drones, naval vessels, munitions, or missile-defence components such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling, or Arrow. This category, entailing production or integration of lethal weapons platforms, sits entirely outside New Look’s disclosed business as a fashion retailer, and No public evidence identified links the company to any such activity.

Export Licensing, Regulatory & Legal History

No public evidence identified of export-licence grant, denial, suspension, or revocation decisions in any jurisdiction relating to New Look and Israeli military or security end-users. No public evidence identified of arms-embargo or sanctions enforcement actions against New Look, nor of court proceedings or judicial review naming the company in connection with Israeli defence supply. New Look is UK-domiciled and privately/lender-held rather than SEC-registered, and no relevant EDGAR-equivalent filings were located during this review. Al-Haq advocacy materials reviewed, including its statement on the OHCHR database update and its legal action concerning Israeli arms producers’ participation at the Milipol exhibition, do not name New Look ¹¹¹².

Civil Society Scrutiny & Documented Investigations

A pro-boycott informational aggregator site (masjidalaqsa.com “BDS List,” 2025) explicitly classifies New Look as “boycott safe,” stating there is no verified evidence proving that New Look has any ties to Israel; this is a secondary aggregator rather than a primary NGO investigation, but it corroborates the absence of findings from other source classes ¹³. No public evidence identified of New Look appearing in Who Profits, official BDS Movement target lists, AFSC’s investigate.afsc.org, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem, SOMO, BankTrack, or Don’t Buy Into Occupation reporting addressing defence, security, or dual-use supply chain relationships with Israel ⁵. No public evidence identified of institutional divestment decisions, pension-fund exclusions, or organised boycott/divestment campaigns targeting New Look specifically on defence-sector grounds, nor of any New Look public statement, policy change, or end-use monitoring commitment issued in response to civil-society pressure on this subject.

New Look’s board - Chairman Mike Coupe, CEO Helen Connolly, CFO Richard Collyer, and Non-Executive Directors Richard Cotter, Colin Henry, Robin Terrell, Stuart MacKenzie, and Laurence Raven - shows no disclosed defence-industry directorships, FIDF or reservist-fund donations, or Israeli defence equity holdings in available biographical sources; disclosed prior roles are in mainstream UK/international retail (Asda, Bonmarché, Next, Dorothy Perkins, Jaeger, Nike, M&S, Tesco, John Lewis, Amazon) and finance (Ethos Private Equity, Alcentra, Merrill Lynch, PwC, McKinsey) ¹⁴¹⁵¹⁶. New Look was acquired by Brait SE, a South African investment holding company, for £780 million in 2015, and subsequently underwent a 2020/2021 debt-for-equity restructuring transferring control to a lender consortium including Alcentra ¹⁷. No public evidence identified of Brait SE, Alcentra, or other current/former New Look ownership vehicles being named for defence-sector or Israeli-settlement-linked activity in the OHCHR database, the PAX report, or the Who Profits database ¹⁵⁶.