As climate change lawsuits mount against the oil industry, ExxonMobil is employing a combative strategy rarely seen in legal disputes. The company, Bloomberg Businessweek reports, is going after the lawyers who are suing it.
According to the magazine, ExxonMobil has targeted at least 30 people and organizations, including the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts, with lawsuits, threats of suits or demands for sworn depositions.
The company claims the lawyers, public officials and environmental activists are “conspiring” against it in a coordinated legal and public relations campaign.
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, ExxonMobil calls that campaign “The La Jolla playbook,” named after the California city believed to be the site of a meeting two dozen people held six years ago to conspire against the company.
New York City and eight California cities and counties have sued ExxonMobil and other gas companies, the magazine notes, alleging that denied findings of climate-change scientists despite knowing that the use of fossil fuels posed “grave risk” to the planet.
