A growing trend has emerged in the ongoing effort to hold greenhouse gas emitters accountable for their contributions to global climate change. The first wave of climate change lawsuits in the U.S. against carbon majors —...more
When Minnesota's Attorney General Keith Ellison announced in June 2020 that his office had filed a climate change lawsuit, the litigation strategy he described was relatively novel for a climate change case. Rather than...more
Earlier this week, Vermont became the latest state to file a lawsuit against the major oil companies featuring allegations focusing on climate change. This is simply the most recent of more than two dozen lawsuits that have...more
A trio of recent developments illustrate growing support for Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives in the U.S., as well as abroad. ESG regulatory and legal risks now appear top of mind for institutional...more
A Bad Day for Big Oil - "ExxonMobil, Chevron lose key shareholder votes and Dutch court orders Shell to cut emissions faster." Why this is important: Issues related to climate change embroiled three oil companies this...more
Huge win yesterday for climate change activists who dealt ExxonMobil leadership a “stunning defeat” when shareholders “elected at least two board candidates nominated by activist investors who pledged to steer the company...more
May 26, 2021 was the day the energy world changed. On the same day that a Dutch court in The Hague ruled that Royal Dutch Shell could be held liable for climate change and ordered it to reduce its greenhouse gas...more
U.S. Shale Producers Race for Federal Permits Ahead of Presidential Election - "Federal permitting in the largest U.S. oilfield in the Permian Basin, located in Texas and New Mexico, is up 80 percent in about the last three...more
Microsoft made a huge gaming move on Monday with its $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the “parent company of gaming studios like Bethesda,” and maker of titles like “The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Quake and...more
In combined cases featuring California cities of San Francisco, Oakland and San Mateo and several California counties and public officials against Exxon Mobil Corporation, Texas’ Fort Worth Court of Appeal denied Exxon...more
Bayer, the German parent company of Monsanto, will pay more than $10 billion to resolve “tens of thousands of claims in the United States that its popular weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.” The settlement covers an estimated...more
This article follows on from a series of previous articles seeking to address climate change litigation in the context of insurance and reinsurance. Three different, but important, decisions in December 2019 have once again...more
Editors’ Note: This is the fifth in our start-of-year series examining important trends in white collar law and investigations in the coming year. Our previous entry discussed False Claims Act trends in 2020. Up next: a look...more
On October 24, 2019, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey filed a 200-page complaint against Exxon in Suffolk Superior Court, alleging violations of G.L. c. 93A, the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act. The lawsuit...more
Sunday’s release of a long-awaited Labor Department final rule on joint employment spells trouble for workers hoping to “sue large companies for wrongdoing by contractors or franchisees.” The rule reverses Obama-era policies...more
More than four years of contentious litigation concluded this month when the Supreme Court of the State of New York released its judgment in the People of the State of New York v Exxon Mobil Corporation. The Court found...more
U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators are “laying the groundwork for a delay of a fresh round of tariffs set to kick in on Dec. 15” as the countries continue to work through how a Chinese promise to make huge ag purchases from...more
The U.S. and China have tentatively [maybe?] agreed that a first phase of a trade agreement “would roll back a portion of the tariffs placed on each other’s products, a significant step toward defusing tensions between the...more
Big Oil’s Climate Change Reckoning Finally Arrives in Court - "New York’s $1.6 billion lawsuit arose from a national effort to hold Big Oil responsible for global warming." Why this is important: The most important...more
This Breakthrough Lithium Extraction Technology Could Accelerate the Sustainable Energy Transition - "A breakthrough nanotechnology from cleantech start-up EnergyX promises to revolutionise the speed, cost and...more
The contentious and partisan debate in Washington over climate change policy may be shifting in a new direction—one that is driven not by partisanship but by a group of bipartisan members of Congress and the engagement and...more
Since 2013, investors in Exxon Mobil Corporation ("Exxon") stock have consistently shown an interest in understanding how the effects of climate change will impact their investment. Over the years, in response to these...more
By refusing to hear an appeal from Exxon Mobil, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to protect the oil giant from handing over decades of climate change-related documents to the Massachusetts Attorney General....more
The Wall Street Journal first reported yesterday that Amazon, fresh from a weekend leak suggesting that Northern Virginia was the HQ2 frontrunner, will choose two locations with an evenly split workforce for its next...more
New York Sues Exxon Mobil, Saying It Deceived Shareholders on Climate Change - "The litigation, which follows more than three years of investigation, represents the most significant legal effort yet to establish that a...more