Will This Case Finally Bring Down ExxonMobil’s Culture of Climate Deception?
05 November 2018
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On Oct. 24, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood filed lawsuit against ExxonMobil for defrauding investors regarding the financial risks the company faces from climate change regulations. New York Attorney General's Office
By Elliott Negin
New York State Attorney General Barbara Underwood recently filed what could be an enormously consequential securities fraud lawsuit against ExxonMobil, exposing in great detail the company's long history of lying about issues related to climate change.
<p>According to the findings of the AG's investigation, ExxonMobil kept one set of numbers internally about the likely future costs of carbon-emission rules while using another set for its shareholders that it knew to be false. For internal planning purposes, the company low-balled estimates for the cost per ton of carbon that would likely be imposed by regulation to make its projects appear to be more profitable. Meanwhile, the company told its shareholders it was using a higher, more plausible, price when determining its projects' long-term economic viability. By doing so, the complaint charges, ExxonMobil deceived its investors, falsely assuring them that its oil and gas reserves would not become unusable for economic reasons—what the industry refers to as "stranded assets."</p><p>The 97-page legal complaint is chock-full of examples of ExxonMobil reports and statements that deceived shareholders about the likely cost of carbon-emission standards. It charges the company with "a longstanding fraudulent scheme" that "was sanctioned at the highest levels of the company."</p><p>Just as the notorious Prohibition-era gangster Al Capone was ultimately brought down on tax fraud charges despite a long rap sheet of murder and mayhem, the case raises the prospect that New York's unique securities fraud law, the Martin Act, could be the legal tool that holds the company accountable for a culture of deception about climate change that spans decades.</p><p>The legal complaint cites one notable corporate statement titled "ExxonMobil and the carbon tax" in which the company reiterated its dubious contention that it supports a carbon tax. In fact, ExxonMobil has <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/exxonmobils-support-for-a-carbon-tax-is-a-sham" target="_blank">never publicly supported an actual carbon tax bill and has consistently funded members of Congress who oppose the idea</a>. The company did get some positive press recently for pledging to donate $1 million to <a href="https://www.afcd.org/the-solution" target="_blank">Americans for Carbon Dividends</a>, a new lobby group promoting a revenue-neutral carbon tax, but the group's plan would pre-empt climate-related lawsuits against fossil fuel companies and eliminate federal regulations curbing carbon emissions.</p><p>ExxonMobil also has long lied about its ongoing support for climate science denier groups. In 2007, a company vice president <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/11/Greenwire-Cohen-Exxon-2-9-07.pdf" target="_blank">claimed</a> it stopped funding them after the Union of Concerned Scientists <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/exxonmobil-report-smoke.html?_ga=2.136124529.1330432963.1540826355-744965406.1518726409#.W9n5B-IpCCp" target="_blank">revealed</a> that ExxonMobil had spent millions of dollars on dozens of groups to sow doubt about the reality and seriousness of climate change. The company's own <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/elliott-negin/exxonmobil-still-funding-climate-science-denier-groups" target="_blank">corporate giving reports</a> show that it continues to fund them to this day. From 1998 through last year, ExxonMobil spent at least $36 million on climate science disinformation groups, more than any other funder besides Charles and David Koch, the multibillionaire owners of Koch Industries.</p><p>The bottom line of the New York AG's complaint is that, when calculating costs for major projects, ExxonMobil "assumed, contrary to its representations [to investors], that existing climate regulation would remain in place, unchanged, indefinitely into the future."</p><p>What would make ExxonMobil so confident that currently weak-to-nonexistent carbon-emission standards would remain the same? Likely its success over the past 20 years in stifling meaningful government action. After all, ExxonMobil and the rest of the US fossil fuel industry have spent enough money on their friends in Congress that a critical mass of them deny the reality of human-driven climate change. So, as long as fossil fuel industry-funded groups continue to provide lawmakers with bogus studies and ply the news media with industry mouthpieces, it is not surprising that ExxonMobil believed it could maintain the status quo.</p><p>As the New York AG complaint shows, however, ExxonMobil's strategy relied on the belief that it could get away with privately counting on business as usual while telling investors it was taking into full consideration the risks to its business posed by the global effort to dramatically curb carbon emissions. When it comes to defrauding investors in New York state, this looming court battle may prove the company wrong.</p><p><em><a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/author/elliott-negin#.W-BLCXpKjjA" target="_blank">Elliott Negin</a> is a senior writer in the Communications Department at the <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/" target="_blank">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>.</em></p>
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350 .org / Flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood filed a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil on Wednesday alleging the company defrauded shareholders and downplayed the risk of climate change to its business.
The suit, first reported by the New York Times, is the culmination of a years-long investigation—colloquially known as the #ExxonKnew probe—into the energy giant's business practices and whether it lied to investors and the public about the risks of climate change.
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In a
<a href="https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/ag-underwood-files-lawsuit-against-exxonmobil-defrauding-investors-regarding-financial" target="_blank">press release</a>, Underwood's office said the investigation uncovered an alleged fraudulent scheme to systematically and repeatedly deceive investors about the significant impact that future climate change regulations could have on the company's assets and value. The alleged fraud reached the highest levels of the company, including former chairman and CEO <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rex-tillerson">Rex Tillerson</a>.
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"Investors put their money and their trust in Exxon—which assured them of the long-term value of their shares, as the company claimed to be factoring the risk of increasing climate change regulation into its business decisions. Yet as our investigation found, Exxon often did no such thing," Attorney General Underwood said in the press release. "Instead, Exxon built a facade to deceive investors into believing that the company was managing the risks of climate change regulation to its business when, in fact, it was intentionally and systematically underestimating or ignoring them, contrary to its public representations."
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The suit, filed in New York Supreme Court, New York County, seeks an order prohibiting Exxon from continuing to misrepresent its practices in this area and requires it to tell investors the truth. It also asks the court to award damages, although no dollar amount was specified.
</p><p>The impact of the alleged fraud on the company's value could be massive. Underwood's office listed the following:
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<li>For 14 of Exxon's oil sands projects in Alberta, Canada, Exxon's failure to apply its publicly represented proxy costs resulted in undercounting of projected greenhouse-gas related expenses by more than $25 billion over the projected lifetime of the projects.<br></li>
<li>Exxon undercounted projected greenhouse gas-related costs by as much as 94 percent—equal to about $11 billion—in an economic forecast for its Kearl oil sands asset in Alberta.<br></li>
<li>Exxon failed to apply the proxy costs it represented to the public in estimating company reserves at Cold Lake, a major oil sands asset in Alberta, resulting in an overestimation of its projected economic life by 28 years, and an overestimation of company reserves volumes by more than 300 million oil-equivalent barrels, representing billions of dollars of revenues.</li>
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The fossil fuel corporation
<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/court-reject-exxon-2484751312.html" target="_self">has tried to block</a> the climate probe in courts in three states, the Times noted.
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A company spokesman told
<a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/412979-new-york-ag-sues-exxon-for-downplaying-climate-change-risks" target="_blank">The Hill</a> that there "is no evidence to support these allegations."
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"These baseless allegations are a product of closed-door lobbying by special interests, political opportunism and the attorney general's inability to admit that a three-year investigation has uncovered no wrongdoing," the spokesman said. "The company looks forward to refuting these claims as soon as possible and getting this meritless civil lawsuit dismissed."
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In 2016,
<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/new-uncovered-corporate-documents-show-exxonknew-much-earlier-than-pre-1891126183.html" target="_blank">DeSmog</a> uncovered Exxon corporate documents from the late 1970s stating unequivocally "there is no doubt" that carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels was a growing "problem" well understood within the company. Despite this knowledge and warnings from its own scientists, Exxon shelved these concerns and "launched a sophisticated, global campaign to sow doubt and create public distrust of climate science," DeSmog reported.
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</p><div id="18595" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1DI3S11576662662"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="725330456439185409" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">New Uncovered Corporate Documents Show #ExxonKnew Much Earlier Than Previously Reported https://t.co/0fH662I1Rs @350 https://t.co/XqIT2fS23r</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/725330456439185409">1461767231.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Environmental groups cheered the lawsuit.
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"Climate change deception is central to Exxon's business model," Richard Wiles, the executive director of the
<a href="http://www.igsd.org/initiatives/the-center-for-climate-integrity/" target="_blank">Center for Climate Integrity</a>, said in an emailed statement. "This is the same company that bankrolled a 30-year, multimillion denial campaign, manufacturing doubt about climate science when it knew there was none."
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<span></span>Bill McKibben, author and <a href="http://350.org/" target="_blank">350.org</a> co-founder, also deemed the suit necessary.
</p><p>
"Big oil may finally face some consequences for its role in wrecking the climate," McKibben said in an emailed statement. "The New York Attorney General is standing up for investors who may have been swindled, and indirectly for the 7 billion of us who will suffer from Exxon's lies."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="7953a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="X96JF61576662662"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="844941824242450434" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Judge to Exxon: Explain Where Those Wayne Tracker Emails Went https://t.co/z9hKeJspaa (via @Ecowatch)</div> — Sierra Club (@Sierra Club)<a href="https://twitter.com/SierraClub/statuses/844941824242450434">1490284803.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Empire State Building Shines Green After NYC's Decision to Take on Fossil Fuel Industry
11 January 2018
Business
NYC Mayor's Office / Twitter
New York City's iconic Empire State Building glowed green Wednesday night following two "watershed" announcements—that the city would seek to divest its pension funds from fossil fuel investments, and that it filed suit against five oil giants for contributing to climate change.
"The Empire State Building is shining green tonight because it's time to put our planet first. #DivestNY," Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted Wednesday.
<p><a href="https://350.org/" target="_blank">350.org</a> co-founder Bill McKibben, a major campaigner in the global divestment movement, remarked <a href="https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/951271611726024704" target="_blank">in a tweet</a> about the green lighting, "Just this once I think it's worth the carbon!"</p><p><span></span>The Belgium-based European Green Party also chimed in and advocated for European leaders to follow the Big Apple's footsteps. </p><p>"Let's join #DivestNY and #DivestEurope for a Green and sustainable future for us and generations to come," the party said on social media. <br></p><div id="27b00" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6AU61B1576662829"><blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-version="4" style=" background:#FFF; border:0;
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<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BdzuCIHl2Lf/" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif;
font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none;
word-wrap:break-word;" target="_top">European Greens on Instagram: “The #EmpireStateBuilding shined green last night to mark #NewYorkCity divesting from fossil fuels and suing oil companies for climate…”</a></p>
</div></blockquote></div><p>The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/3-4-trillion-fossil-fuel-divestment-commitments-break-new-record-1882128369.html" target="_blank">divestment movement</a> has grown <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/divest-from-fossil-fuels-movement-explodes-across-the-u-s-1882033688.html" target="_blank">in the U.S.</a> and around the world. In November, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/investment-fund-divests-norway-2510263326.html" target="_blank">Norway proposed</a> to sell off all of its shares (about $35 billion) in oil and natural gas holdings.</p><p>Mayor de Blasio and Comptroller Scott Stringer said they intend to divest New York City's $5 billion in securities of over 190 fossil fuel companies.<br></p><p>New York's lawsuit, filed in federal court, names BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell as defendants. The city seeks billions of dollars in damages and alleges the fossil fuel industry knew for decades that burning fuels drives global warming.</p><p>Environmentalists cheered the city's historic announcement.</p><p>"Today was an incredible day," author and investigative journalist Naomi Klein
<a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/status/951195725702017024" target="_blank">tweeted</a>. "Hearing the mayor of the biggest city in the richest country on earth announce a lawsuit against 5 oil majors for climate damages AND fossil fuel divestment? Wow. We needed this. We will build on it."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="9836f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="SFKJ9B1576662829"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="951254656520544256" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">@NYCMayor On 34th Street tonight. https://t.co/qeYYeDFWM3</div> — City of New York (@City of New York)<a href="https://twitter.com/nycgov/statuses/951254656520544256">1515631758.0</a></blockquote></div>
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