ExxonMobil was found not guilty this morning in a lawsuit accusing the energy giant of downplaying the toll that climate change regulations could take on its business, with a state judge saying the New York attorney general’s case didn’t prove the company deceived investors—but also didn’t excuse it of any accountability for global warming.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office didn’t prove “that ExxonMobil made any material misstatements or omissions about its practices and procedures that misled any reasonable investor,” Judge Barry Ostrager in Manhattan wrote in dismissing the case.
“Nothing in this opinion is intended to absolve ExxonMobil from responsibility for contributing to climate change through the emission of greenhouse gases,” he added. “But ExxonMobil is in the business of producing energy, and this is a securities fraud case, not a climate change case.”
ExxonMobil hailed the ruling in a trial that it said stemmed from a “baseless investigation.”
“We provided our investors with accurate information on the risks of climate change,” the Irving, Texas-based company said in a statement. “Lawsuits that waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money do nothing to advance meaningful actions that reduce the risks of climate change.”
James’ office didn’t immediately have a statement. The Democrat’s office had hoped the court would order Exxon to pay an estimated $476 million to $1.6 billion in restitution to shareholders.
The lawsuit accused Exxon Mobil of essentially keeping two sets of books—telling the public that it was fully taking into account the costs of potential future climate regulations in a warming world, while lowballing those costs behind the scenes as it made investment decisions and assessed the value of its oil and gas reserves.
ExxonMobil has used two different metrics to account for potential carbon costs: a “proxy cost” for predicting how regulations worldwide might reduce demand for oil and gas, and a “greenhouse gas cost” used to figure how local regulations might affect specific projects.
Its executives and attorneys said the company applied the appropriate costs depending on the situation. But the attorney general’s office says the two-part system added up to minimizing emissions price tags on some oil and gas development projects, making them look more financially attractive. Read the full story from the Associated Press.
