Sony POLITICAL

Corporate Communications & Public Stance

• Sony’s 2024 Sustainability Report states that it contributed US$2 million (approximately ¥300 million) to the Japanese Red Cross Society and UNICEF for humanitarian assistance following the October 2023 attacks and ensuing hostilities in Israel and Gaza.^{1, 2}

• Sony reported that employee donations, including matching programmes, brought the regional humanitarian total to approximately ¥319 million, with listed recipients including the Japanese Red Cross Society, UNICEF, Save the Children, and Médecins Sans Frontières.^{1, 2}

• The reviewed corporate materials characterise this support as humanitarian assistance and do not document support for Israeli military, settlement, or state-security bodies.^{1, 2}

• In its FY2025 sustainability Q&A, Sony answered a question concerning reports of Sony products being used in weaponry in Israel and Gaza by stating that its policy prohibits involvement in the development, design, manufacture, sale, or provision of weapons, including technology transfer for that purpose.³

• Sony further stated that it uses risk-based due diligence for products and technologies susceptible to military use, including checks of customers, intended uses, and end users, while acknowledging difficulty tracking consumer products after sale; the response identifies no specific Israeli customer, contract, product, transaction, or corrective action.³

• Sony Music Group’s Global Impact Report 2024 states that it continued, with Sony Group, to support humanitarian aid for civilians affected by ongoing hostilities in Israel and Palestine and the region; the retrieved material does not identify an additional amount or recipient beyond the group-level assistance already disclosed.⁴

• Sony’s current disaster-relief ledger continues to list the October 2023 Israel-and-Gaza assistance at approximately ¥319 million; this confirms public display of the historical entry rather than a new post-2024 donation.⁵

• No public evidence identified in the targeted live-search batches of a later Sony corporate release specifically addressing Palestinian civilian harm, Israeli military action, settlements, or a political settlement of the conflict beyond the FY2025 due-diligence response and the Sony Music humanitarian-aid wording.^{3, 4}

Operations in Occupied or Contested Territories

• Sony Semiconductor Solutions Group currently lists ISDC Ltd. among its Israeli group companies and identifies its activity as image-sensor development.^{6, 7}

• Sony Semiconductor Solutions separately lists ISDC Ltd. at 15 Hatidhar Street, Ra’anana, Israel, and ISDC’s Sony-branded site describes it as part of Sony Semiconductor Solutions and as an innovation and development centre working on CMOS image sensors and depth sensors.^{8, 9}

• These public materials establish ISDC’s current operational affiliation and Israeli R&D role, but they do not disclose ISDC’s direct legal parent, shareholding, directors, customers, acquisition history, military customers, or operations in occupied territory.^{8, 6, 7, 9}

• Sony announced its January 2016 acquisition of Israel-based Altair Semiconductor for US$212 million, describing Altair as headquartered in Hod Hasharon and engaged in LTE modem-chip technology.¹⁰

• Sony Semiconductor Solutions stated that Altair Semiconductor Ltd. changed its name to Sony Semiconductor Israel Ltd. effective 29 March 2020.¹¹

• Altair announced on 27 April 2026 that it had completed a spin-off from Sony Semiconductor Solutions and that Sony would remain a shareholder; the announcement does not state Sony’s retained percentage, voting or board rights, buyer, transaction date, or whether Sony retained control.¹²

• Sony’s FY2026 Form 20-F records a ¥19.9 billion loss associated with the sale of an equity interest in Sony Semiconductor Israel Ltd. during the fiscal year ended 31 March 2026.¹³

• The April 2026 Altair announcement supports continued Sony shareholding after the spin-off, while Sony’s FY2026 filing confirms a sale of an equity interest; neither source establishes Sony’s current percentage interest or whether it retains control.^{12, 13}

• Sony Semiconductor Solutions’ current group-company page lists ISDC but not Sony Semiconductor Israel or Altair; this omission alone does not establish complete divestment because the page is not described as a complete Sony Group legal-entity register.⁷

• Isfar Consumer Products Ltd. describes itself as Sony’s official importer in Israel and states that it markets Sony televisions, audio products, cameras, PlayStation consoles, and related products, although this distributor claim was not independently corroborated by a Sony contract or filing in the reviewed material.¹⁴

• Who Profits’ November 2018 report identifies Sony Corporation as one of four suppliers of surveillance hardware in Israel’s Mabat 2000 visual-surveillance programme in occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City.¹⁵

• Who Profits’ company profile states that a June 2018 field tour observed at least six Sony cameras on two towers at Bab al-Amud/Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem.¹⁶

• Who Profits states that Israel’s Ministry of Defense published tenders for Sony-branded equipment in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, including cameras, lenses, microphones, screens, drivers, and a 2022 tender for a Sony FX6 full-frame camera.¹⁶

• AFSC Investigate repeats the Ministry of Defense purchasing assertion and attributes to Who Profits a claim that Sony surveillance cameras were used at Israeli military checkpoints in the Gaza Strip; the underlying checkpoint documentation was not retrieved in the supplied research.¹⁷

• The reviewed material does not establish that Sony itself, rather than a reseller or another supplier, fulfilled any Ministry of Defense tender, nor does it establish contract values, delivery dates, current deployment, ongoing servicing, or continuation after July or November 2024.^{16, 17}

• Sony’s continued Israeli R&D presence and reported retained Altair shareholding are separate facts and do not establish continuation of the older surveillance or procurement allegations.^{12, 7, 9}

• Sony is not named in the supplied full-text checks of the OHCHR 2023 settlement-business database update, the OHCHR’s 2025 update announcement, the UN Special Rapporteur’s A/HRC/59/23 report, or PAX/Profundo’s June 2024 arms-company report; these are document-scoped results rather than general findings of absence.^{18, 19, 20, 21}

• Palestine Solidarity Campaign published a Sony campaign page in February 2020 referring to the Who Profits East Jerusalem camera observation; the reviewed material did not verify a formal BDS designation or Sony response.²²

Internal Governance, Content & Retail Policies

• Business & Human Rights Resource Centre records that Sony Corporation did not respond to a 16 August 2022 inquiry concerning allegations about surveillance hardware and unlawful surveillance or racial discrimination against Palestinians; the recorded non-response does not establish acceptance of those allegations.²³

• No public evidence identified in the bounded research of Sony HR enforcement, employee-speech discipline, union disputes, PlayStation content moderation, retail labelling, or settlement-origin sourcing connected to Israel-Palestine.²³

• No public evidence identified in the reviewed materials of litigation, regulatory enforcement, OECD National Contact Point complaints, or parliamentary inquiries naming Sony in connection with Israel-Palestine.^{23, 18, 19, 20}

Brand Heritage & State Partnerships

• No public evidence identified in the bounded research that Sony markets Israeli military or state-security heritage, or that it has entered a non-commercial Israeli state-branding or cultural public-relations partnership.²⁴

• Sony’s documented Israeli corporate footprint in the reviewed materials concerns image-sensor R&D and cellular-IoT semiconductor activity rather than an entity described in those sources as advancing Israeli state infrastructure.^{10, 11, 12, 7, 9}

Lobbying, Advocacy, Financing & Logistics

• Sony’s disclosed post-October-2023 regional contribution was directed to humanitarian organisations rather than a military-welfare, settlement, or parastatal organisation in the reviewed corporate materials.^{1, 5, 2}

• Contemporaneous Reuters/Ynet and Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports in October 2006 stated that Sony Pictures Entertainment gave US$50,000 to the Jewish National Fund’s northern Israel renewal work after the 2006 Lebanon war. The Reuters/Ynet report also described a separate Red Cross donation in Lebanon, with inconsistent amounts in its headline and body. No contemporaneous Sony or JNF donor record was retrieved, and no continuation of the 2006 contribution was established; these remain attributed historical media findings.^{25, 26}

• No primary source was located in the constrained review documenting Sony corporate lobbying on Israel-Palestine, anti-BDS lobbying, federal PAC activity, current donations to FIDF, JNF/KKL, settlement organisations, or crisis logistics or free-service mobilisation for Israeli state or military bodies.^{3, 5}

Corporate Structure & Primary Mission

• Sony Group Corporation is a Japanese public company headquartered at 1-7-1 Konan, Minato-ku, Tokyo, and the FY2026 Form 20-F identifies the registrant as Sony Group Kabushiki Kaisha / Sony Group Corporation, incorporated in Japan.^{27, 13}

• Sony identifies six operating segments: Game & Network Services, Music, Pictures, Entertainment Technology & Services, Imaging & Sensing Solutions, and All Other.²⁷

• Sony’s FY2026 filing lists wholly owned significant subsidiaries including Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc., Sony Corporation, Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation, Sony Corporation of America, Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Music Publishing LLC, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Sony Electronics Inc., Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Ltd., and Sony Europe B.V.^{28, 13}

• As of 30 June 2026, Sony’s public shareholder table listed Master Trust Bank of Japan (Trust Account) at 18.0%, Moxley and Co LLC at 8.9%, Custody Bank of Japan (Trust Account) at 6.6%, and the Government of Norway at 2.0%.²⁹

• Sony states that the trust-account shares are held for investors, that Moxley is JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.’s ADR nominee, and that listed State Street, Chase, JPMorgan, and BNY Mellon entities act as institutional-investor custodians or nominees; the table therefore does not identify ultimate beneficial owners behind every reported position.²⁹

• Sony’s FY2026 Form 20-F lists recent Japanese Bulk Shareholding Reports above 5% for Nomura Asset Management and joint holders (5.01%, report dated 6 October 2020), BlackRock Japan and joint holders (8.53%, 5 December 2024), and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management and a joint holder (5.88%, 19 September 2025), while noting that these reports do not distinguish direct from beneficial ownership.¹³

• Sony states that, to its knowledge, it is not directly or indirectly owned or controlled by another corporation, foreign government, natural person, or legal person, individually or jointly, and that it knows of no arrangement that could subsequently result in a change of control.¹³

• Sony’s 2026 filing states that major shareholders do not have voting rights different from other shareholders.¹³

• The public register and filings reviewed do not identify an individual, family, state entity, or disclosed beneficial holder of at least 10% with control or material governance influence; determining ultimate ownership behind trust and nominee accounts would require underlying Japanese large-shareholding and custodian disclosures.^{13, 29}

• Sony’s FY2026 Form 20-F describes its stated corporate objects as commercial activities including electronic and electrical machinery, medical and optical instruments, audiovisual and computer software, industrial and consumer products, real estate, construction, transportation, warehousing, publishing, and printing.¹³

• No public evidence identified in the reviewed corporate materials of a Sony charter provision, golden share, or founding mandate tying Sony’s primary mission to Israeli state infrastructure or geopolitical objectives.^{13, 24}

Executive & Leadership Footprint

• Sony lists Hiroki Totoki as Director, President and CEO and Representative Corporate Executive Officer, and Kenichiro Yoshida as Executive Chairman.³⁰

• Sony’s board listing includes Lin Tao, Wendy Becker as Chair, and outside directors Joseph A. Kraft Jr., Neil Hunt, William Morrow, Shingo Konomoto, Yoriko Goto, Nora Denzel, and Masayuki Hyodo.^{30, 31}

• At the 23 June 2026 annual meeting, shareholders elected Totoki, Tao, Becker, Kraft, Hunt, Morrow, Konomoto, Goto, Denzel, and Hyodo as directors; Sony identifies the latter eight as outside directors under Japanese company law.³¹

• Sony identifies Hideaki Nishino as President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Ravi Ahuja as Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Rob Stringer as Chairman of Sony Music Group and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment, and Shinji Sashida as President and CEO of Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation.³⁰

• Sony identifies Toshimoto Mitomo as Chief Strategy Officer, and its August 2026 group summary reports 1,546 consolidated subsidiaries.^{27, 32}

• Sony’s history page identifies Masaru Ibuka as founder of Sony’s predecessor, Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K., and states that he prepared its January 1946 founding prospectus.²⁴

• No public evidence identified in the reviewed materials of Sony controlling principals, directors, or senior executives making disclosed Israel-Palestine-specific donations, holding relevant Israel-policy advocacy roles, organizational affiliations, or issuing conflict-specific public statements.^{30, 13}

• This conclusion is limited: the supplied research did not complete director-by-director review of all foundation, tax, donor-event, charity-regulator, or social-media records, and no personal or family foundation controlled by a current Sony principal was located in the constrained search.^{30, 13}