Exxon slick over $1.6B
AG suit hits oil giant over impact on climate change
Exxon has misled investors about the impact of climate change on its business and should repay investors as much as $1.6 billion, a lawyer for state Attorney General Letitia James said Tuesday.
The hefty sum — a mere drop in the bucket for the company that earned $279 billion in revenue in 2018 — was revealed in opening arguments of the case, which a defense attorney for the oil giant slammed as a meritless political hit job.
Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon CEO and ex-secretary of state, is expected to testify during the trial that will last three weeks.
Former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman began an investigation into the company with much fanfare in 2016. The state’s lawsuit revolves around what Exxon said publicly about the impact of the cost of carbon and greenhouse gas emissions on its business, versus what it said internally.
“The gap between what
Exxon said it was doing and what it was actually doing was significant and affected its bottom line,” Assistant Attorney General Kevin Wallace said in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Exxon “never disclosed” projections showing that the costs of climate change regulations would make some of the company’s assets “significantly less profitable,” Wallace said.
Tillerson was closely involved in the issue, Wallace explained, citing statements the oil man made at a 2016 shareholder meeting, as well as internal company documents.
The AG’s office is seeking an order that the company undertake a review of its calculations on carbon costs, make supervised disclosures for the next four years and establish a shareholder restitution fund of up to $1.6 billion.
Higherups at the company — one of the world’s largest — are clearly outraged by the case.
Exxon attorney Ted Wells called the lawsuit “bizarre and twisted.” The attorney general was misleadingly portraying an internal metric used to assess individual, unfunded Exxon projects with a metric the company uses for global calculations on the cost of climate change, Wells said.
“[The case] was part of a decision by Eric Schneiderman to get out of the objective and fair minded lane… and go over to the other lane where he is a politician,” Wells said.